Papers  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Delaware 


II 


ADDRESS 


ox  THE 


History  of  the  Boundaries 


OF  THE 


State  of  Delaware 


By  HON.  JOHN  W.  HOUSTON 


THE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  OF  DELAWARE 

WILMINGTON,  1879 


The  following  paper  was  read  by  Judge  Houston,  on  the  invitation  of  the 
Historical  Society  of  Delaware,  on  Thursday,  February  21,  1878. 


JL.iiJX»_fi_lL  J.) 

UM\TRSITY  OF  CALIF0rwui4 
SAiNTA  BARBARA 


ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY 


OF  THE 


Boundaries  on  the  State  of  Delaware 


Gentlemen  of  the  Historical  Society: 

I  have  selected  for  the  subject  of  ray  address  on  this 
occasion  the  history  of  the  early  and  primitive  questions 
in  relation  to  the  coterminous  boundaries  of  this  State  and 
the  States  of  Maryland  and  New  Jersey,  respectively.  For, 
notwithstanding  they  have  long  since  been  practically  and 
definitively  settled,  as  we  think,  and  Delaware,  the  oldest 
State  in  the  Union  (I  say  so,  because  she  was  the  first  to 
enter  it),  has  now  been  in  the  undisturbed  possession  of  all 
her  present  domain  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  on  the 
one  side,  and  for  nearly  two  hundred  years  on  the  other, 
yet,  I  am  extremely  sorry  to  say  that,  small  as  it  is,  the 
whole  world,  it  seems,  is  still  not  fully  satisfied  that  we 
are  justly  and  rightfully  entitled  to  quite  all  of  it.  Now, 
I  must  admit  that  it  is  not  very  pleasant,  if  it  is  not  posi- 
tively painful,  to  be  obliged  to  make,  at  this  late  day,  such 
a  public  confession;  but  for  the   melancholy  proof  of  the 

3 


4  ADDRESS  0\   THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

statement  which  I  have  just  made  I  have  but  to  refer  you 
on  the  one  hand,  to  the  fact  that  the  great  State  of  New 
Jersey  has  actually  sued  us,  within  a  year  past,  for  a  little 
piece  of  land  entirely  covered  with  water,  and  not  much 
larger  than  the  Pea  Patch,  before  the  highest  tribunal  in 
the  country,  where  it  is  now  pending;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  to  the  interesting  and  elaborate  address  of  an  emi- 
nent citizen  of  the  State  of  Maryland,  delivered  before  this 
Society  a  few  years  since  only,  upon  the  original  validity 
of  the  Lord  Baltimore's  title  to  the  whole  of  it,  under  the 
royal  grant  contained  and  described  in  his  letters  patent  for 
the  Province  of  Maryland.  I  must,  however,  do  New  Jer- 
sey the  justice  to  say  that  she  is  this  time  seeking,  it  seems, 
to  recover  water  with  its  incidental  rights  of  fishery,  rather 
than  land,  or  mud  merely,  as  in  the  Pea  Patch  case.  Now, 
before  a  tribunal  of  conscience  and  equity  jurisdiction,  my 
first  defence  to  her  present  claim  would  be,  that  she  already 
owns  and  is  surrounded  by  more  water  than  any  other  State 
in  the  Union,  and  has  no  further  need  of  any  more  of  that 
unstable  element,  until  a  second  flood  comes.  And  the 
same  remark  may  be  made  with  regard  to  fish  also.  And 
on  that  subject  I  would  add,  that  it  is  unfortunately  but  too 
well  known  to  all  her  neighbors  that  her  remarkable  and 
innate  affinity  for  fish  is  already  too  strong  and  selfish,  par- 
ticularly as  to  shell-fish,  and  always  has  been;  and  that  it 
ought  not  to  be  encouraged  in  this  liberal  and  enlightened 
age  of  the  world,  and  in  a  country  like  ours.  Her  claim  is 
therefore  clearly  unconscionable,  I  think,  on  both  of  these 
grounds. 

Although  the  questions  presented  are  separate  and  dis- 


BOrXDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  5 

tinct  from  each  (jther  one  historical  review  will  inchide 
both  from  the  time  the  one  in  relation  to  the  boundary 
between  this  State  and  New  Jersey  arises,  which  was  some 
fifty  years  subsequent  to  the  origin  of  the  other  in  relation 
to  the  boundary  between  this  State  and  Maryland;  but  in 
the  consideration  of  the  latter  we  must  necessarily  com- 
mence the  review  with  the  date  of  the  first  settlement  by  a 
Christian  people  within  the  limits  of  our  State,  and  with 
the  date  of  the  letters  patent  to  Lord  Baltimore  for  his 
Province  of  Maryland,  together  with  the  petition  on  which 
they  were  issued,  and  the  terms  of  it,  describing  the  lands 
applied  for  in  it,  and  which  were  granted  to  him  purs^iant 
to  the  description.  For  upon  these  facts  alone  that  question 
originally  depended. 

Prior  to  that  period,  and  even  to  the  discovery  of  our 
bay  and  river,  or  of  any  part  of  our  coast  from  the  capes  of 
the  Chesapeake  to  Cape  Cod,  the  English  had  discovered 
and  claimed  all  the  coast  of  New  England  north  of  the  latter 
cape,  and  had  also  discovered  and  claimed  all  the  coast 
from  the  capes  of  the  Chesapeake  to  the  coast  of  Florida; 
and  although  the  intervening  portion  of  it  had  not  yet  been 
actually  discovered  by  any  English  or  other  European  navi- 
gator, the  Crown  of  England  had  already  made  grants  to 
its  subjects  of  the  whole  country,  extending  from  North 
Carolina  to  the  northern  limit  of  New  England,  with  a 
view  to  the  speedy  colonization  and  settlement  of  it;  and 
under  one  of  those  early  grants  to  the  London  Company, 
by  name,  the  colony  of  Jamestown,  Virginia,  had  been 
planted  on  the  southern  shores  of  the  Chesapeake  Bay  as 
earlv  as  the  vear   1607,   and   three   thousand   miles  of  its 


6  ADDRESS  OS  THE  II J  STORY  OF  THE 

shores,  and  of  the  rivers  flowing  into  it,  had  been  explored 
as  early  as  the  year  following.  In  the  year  following  that, 
or  in  1609,  the  fearless  and  intrepid  navigator,  Captain 
Henry  Hudson,  an  Englishman,  but  then  sailing  under  the 
flag  of  the  United  Netherlands,  and  in  command  of  a  ship 
belonging  to  the  Dutch  East  India  Company,  in  seeking 
the  capes  of  the  Chesapeake  with  the  view  of  touching  at 
Jamestown  for  provisions,  missed  them,  and  bearing  north- 
ward along  the  coast,  in  full  view  of  the  land  and  the  long 
line  of  lofty  forests  in  full  leaf  which  then  overshadowed 
the  solitude  of  the  unknown  shore,  on  the  28th  day  of 
August  in  that  year  discovered  for  the  first  time  in  the 
annals  of  history  the  capes  of  the  Delaware,  which  he 
entered  about  noon,  and,  after  spending  the  rest  of  the  day 
and  night  on  the  bosom  of  our  bay,  sailed  early  the  next 
morning,  and,  still  standing  northward  along  the  coast,  in 
six  days  afterwards  discovered  and  entered  the  Bay  of  New 
York.  He  lingered  there  for  several  weeks,  and  long 
enough  to  explore  the  surrounding  shores  and  the  Hudson 
River  as  high  as  the  site  of  the  city  of  Albany. 

The  report  of  his  discoveries,  which  reached  Holland 
before  the  close  of  the  year,  produced  such  an  impression 
in  Amsterdam  and  other  cities,  that  steps  were  promptly 
taken  by  individuals  on  their  own  account  as  private  ven- 
tures, to  open  a  direct  trade  with  the  natives  of  these  newly- 
discovered  regions,  and  commencing  as  early  as  1610,  they 
had  established  in  five  or  six  years  two  very  considerable 
trading-posts  and  settlements,  the  principal  one  on  Man- 
hattan Island,  and  the  other  on  an  island  in  the  Hudson 
not  far  below  the  site  of  Albany ;  and  as  small  forts  of  rude 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  7 

and  primitive  construction  were  speedily  erected  for  the 
defence  of  the  posts  and  the  stores  and  goods  kept  in  them, 
the  former  was  named  Fort  Amsterdam  and  the  latter  Fort 
Orange.  In  the  mean  while,  the  Delaware  Bay  and  River 
had  been  explored  as  high  as  the  mouth  of  the  Schuylkill, 
and  the  Connecticut  River  had  been  added  to  the  Dutch 
discoveries  soon  afterwards,  and  the  Hudson  and  the  Dela- 
ware had  already  been  baptized  in  their  conception  and 
their  language  as  twin  rivers,  by  the  name  of  the  North  and 
the  South  River,  respectively.  As  early  as  1620  the  English 
had  planted  another  colony  at  Plymouth,  in  Massachusetts, 
and  from  the  date  of  the  first  occupation  by  the  Dutch  of 
the  intervening  country  between  that  and  Jamestown,  in 
Virginia,  they  had  persistently  denied  their  title  to  it,  or 
any  part  of  it.  In  1611,  Lord  Delaware,  governor  and 
captain-general  of  the  Jamestown  colony,  before  any  intel- 
ligence of  Hudson's  discoveries  had  reached  the  colony, 
sailed  thence  in  the  month  of  March  in  that  year  for  the 
West  India  Islands  on  account  of  his  health,  which  was 
much  impaired,  and,  encountering  heavy  head  winds  soon 
after  leaving  the  capes  of  the  Chespeake,  was  driven  north- 
ward, when  the  capes  of  a  new  and  entirely  unknown  bay 
to  any  one  on  board  the  ship  were  discovered,  and  which 
they  entered,  and  where  they  remained  for  a  day  or  two, 
anchored  under  the  lee  of  the  southern  cape  awaiting  a 
change  in  the  wind,  and  which  in  honor  of  his  lordship  was 
then  named  Delaware  Bay,  and  which  it  has  retained  ever 
since  among  the  English.  It  is  a  httle  remarkable  that, 
being  so  near  the  capes  of  the  Chesapeake,  and  particularly 
with  the  activity  and  enterprise  which  had  been  so  early 


8  ADDRESS  OX  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

exhibited  in  the  exploration  of  the  shores  of  that  bay,  the 
discovery  of  ours  should  have  been  so  purely  accidental 
in  both  instances,  and  even  more  so  in  the  second  than  in 
the  first. 

I  do  not  deem  it  necessary  for  my  purpose  to  notice  the 
Dutch  settlement  or  colony  planted  by  Captain  Cornelius 
Mey  at  Nassau  on  the  Delaware  River,  near  Gloucester 
Point,  in  1623,  because  it  was  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  river 
and  not  within  our  limits,  and  could  never  have  had  any  ma- 
terial bearing  on  the  question  involved  between  the  Province 
of  Maryland  and  the  three  lower  counties  on  the  Delaware 
which  now  constitute  our  State.  Besides,  I  have  reasons 
for  believing  that  there  were  Dutch  traders  settled  on  the 
Hoorn  Kill,  now  Lewes  Creek,  as  early  as  1622,  although 
no  colony  or  regular  settlement  transplanted  from  Holland 
had  been  founded  there  so  early  as  that  date.  There  was  a 
permanent  native  settlement  or  Indian  village  on  the  banks 
of  it  when  the  bay  was  first  discovered,  and  according  to 
the  description  we  have  of  the  creek  fifty  years  afterwards, 
it  deserved  to  be  called  a  river  instead  of  a  creek,  with  a 
fine  roadstead  within  the  mouth  of  it  for  the  ships  of  that 
day  of  all  burdens,  and  none  like  it  for  safety  in  all  the  bay, 
the  right  channel  for  sailing  up  the  bay  passing  it,  and 
only  two  leagues  above  Cape  Henlopen;  for  being  within 
so  short  a  voyage  of  Fort  Amsterdam,  and  as  the  sole  ob- 
ject of  those  early  Dutch  adventurers  was  trade  and  traffic 
with  the  natives,  chiefly  in  furs  and  peltries,  and  game  of 
all  kinds  was  then  abundant  in  the  surrounding  regions, 
the  opening  of  such  a  market  would  soon  attract  the  notice 
and   attention   of   the   natives   and   the   traders   alike,   and 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DEE  AW  ARE.  9 

draw  them  to  that  Indian  settlement  for  such  purposes. 
That  a  casual  intercourse  of  that  kind  first  sprung  up  at 
a  very  early  period  between  that  point  on  our  shores  and 
the  Dutch  traders  on  Manhattan  Island  and  the  Hudson, 
I  think  there  can  be  no  question,  and  which  not  only  war- 
rants the  opinion  I  have  expressed,  that  there  were  such 
settlers  there  as  early  as  1()'"2'^  or  16'28,  but  it  accounts  for 
the  more  important  fact  that  the  Hooni  Kill  soon  l)egan 
to  attract  the  attention  of  a  class  of  gentlemen  in  Holland 
Avho  looked  to  a  larger  business  that  might  be  established 
there  with  success  and  with  much  greater  profits,  as  they 
imagined,  than  any  trade  with  the  natives  there  or  '6n  the 
Hudson  could  possibly  afford  to  such  as  were  engaged 
in  it.  And  it  was  this  that  led  such  men  of  means  as 
Messrs.  Godyn,  Blommaert,  Van  Rensselaer,  De  Vries,  and 
a  considerable  number  of  others  of  like  intelligence  and 
means  in  Amsterdam  and  other  cities  in  Holland,  as  early 
as  1629,  to  form  a  private  company,  or  copartnership,  to 
purchase  all  the  .-.ait-marsh  skirting  our  side  of  the  bay- 
shore  from  Cape  Henlopen  to  Bomby  Hook  Roads,  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  a  whale-fi.shery  on  our  bay,  and  in 
connection  with  it,  and  as  a  part  of  the  enterprise,  to  plant 
a  Dutch  colony  on  the  Hoorn  Kill.  They,  or  some  of 
them  at  least,  also  probably  aspired  to  the  honor  and 
dignity  of  becoming  in  time  Dutch  patroons  on  the  shores 
of  the  Delaware,  and  they  would  have  well  deserved  the 
full  fruition  of  their  ambition  had  they  succeeded  in  the 
undertaking.  But  as  Dutchmen  generally  move  with  care 
and  caution  in  all  great  enterprises,  I  have  no  doubt  they 
were  a  good   while   in   gradually   growing  ripe  for   such   a 


10  ADDRESS  OX  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

grand  oil  speculation,  and  I  have  as  little  doubt  that  there 
were  at  that  daj'  a  good  many  large  fish  in  the  Delaware 
Bay,  and  among  them  not  a  few  whales  of  very  respectable 
proportions.  They  had  enjoyed  the  undisturbed  posses- 
sion of  its  waters  for  so  many  ages  that  such  a  thing 
was  certainly  possible.  But  I  suspect  that  the  Dutch 
traders  I  have  spoken  of,  and  the  Dutch  sailors  who  had 
become  familiar  with  our  bay  prior  to  that  time,  had  been 
so  long  indulging  in  stupendous  fish-stories  both  as  to  the 
multitude  and  magnitude  of  them,  as  to  have  quite  upset  for 
the  time  the  mental  balance  of  those  gentlemen.  It  is 
certain,  however,  that  they  embarked  in  the  enterprise  with 
the  confident  expectation  of  making  a  success  of  it,  and  De 
Vries,  who  had  filled  with  credit  to  himself  a  post  of  re- 
spectability in  the  military  service  of  the  Netherlands,  and 
had  recently  returned  from  a  protracted  residence  in  the 
East  Indies,  was  selected  and  solicited  to  assume  in  person 
the  management  of  the  enterprise  as  the  director-general 
of  the  colony.  They  also  had  suflBcient  encouragement  in 
their  undertaking  and  influence  with  the  Dutch  West  India 
Company,  which  despatched  three  ships  early  in  the  spring 
of  1629  to  Fort  Amsterdam,  to  procure  an  order  that  on 
their  arrival  there  one  of  them  should  proceed  with  an 
agent  of  theirs  to  the  Hoorn  Kill  to  complete  the  purchase 
of  the  salt-marsh  mentioned  from  the  Indians  of  the  village. 
The  ship  arrived  there  as  ordered  in  the  latter  part  of 
May.  and  on  the  first  day  of  June  in  that  year  the  pur- 
chase was  duly  made,  and  the  sale  was  afterwards  acknowl- 
edged by  a  delegation  of  the  Indians  of  the  village  before 
the  director-general  and  council  of  the  New  Netherlands, — 


BOUXD ARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  11 

the  general  name  which  all  their  territory  had  now  received, 
— in  Fort  Amsterdam,  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  July.  1630. 
And  to  show  still  further  the  extent  and  magnitude,  as  well 
as  the  gravity  and  importance  of  this  great  enterprise  in  the 
estimation  of  the  projectors  of  it.,  they  soon  after  purchased 
from  the  Indians  on  the  other  side  of  the  bay  a  long  and 
narrow  strip  of  land  extending  from  Cape  May  several  miles 
up  the  shore,  and  which  would  look  as  if  they  even  con- 
templated making  a  mare  clausum  of  the  Delaware  Bay,  so 
far,  at  least,  as  the  business  of  whale-fishing  in  it  was  con- 
cerned; and  when  we  consider  the  characteristic  trait  of  the 
Dutch  at  that  day,  and  what  rigid  monopolists  they  were  in 
regard  to  trade  in  all  their  foreign  possessions,  it  is  not  a 
violent  presumption  perhaps  to  impute  such  a  motive  to 
them.  They  were  well  informed,  however,  although  none 
of  them  had  ever  visited  America  up  to  that  time,  of  the 
character  of  the  tract  they  were  about  to  purchase,  that  it 
was  an  almost  continuous  body  of  salt-marsh,  extending  from 
Cape  Henlopen  to  the  mouth  of  the  river,  between  forty  and 
fifty  miles  in  length,  with  a  mean  breadth  or  depth  back  to 
the  mainland  of  from  two  to  three  miles,  and  that  it,  of 
course,  skirted  the  whole  bay-shore  on  its  southern  side; 
and  therefore  it  has  occurred  to  me  that,  with  the  sanguine 
hopes  and  expectations  then  evidently  entertained  by  them 
in  regard  to  the  results  of  their  immediate  undertaking, 
there  was  probably  an  ulterior  design  also  on  their  part 
ultimately  to  reclaim  it  by  embankment,  and  which  was  by 
no  means  a  visionary  conception  in  the  minds  of  such  men 
bred  and  born  in  Holland.  And  had  it  been  the  destiny 
of  that  remarkable  race  to  which  they  belonged  to  retain 


12  ADDRESS  OX   THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

permanently  the  dominion  which  it  had  then  so  recently 
acquired  in  certainly  one  of  the  very  finest  regions  in 
America,  may  I  not  ask  how  long  would  that  vast  expanse 
of  salt-marsh  have  been  doomed  to  look  both  to  heaven 
and  man  in  vain  for  such  an  improvement? 

There  is  some  uncertainty  as  to  the  year  in  which  the  col- 
ony first  projected  and  planted  within  the  limits  of  our  State 
arrived  on  the  banks  of  the  Hoorn  Kill.  There  is  no  doubt, 
however,  that  it  was  as  early  as  the  spring  of  1631,  although 
De  Vries  himself,  the  director-general  of  it,  in  the  incidental 
allusion  to  the  massacre  of  it  by  the  Indians,  contained  in 
his  letter  of  indignant  protest  and  remonstrance  written  some 
/ten  or  twelve  years  after  that  event,  and  addressed  to  Director- 
General  Kieft  of  the  New  Netherlands,  and  then  residing 
at  New  Amsterdam,  against  the  design  he  had  formed  of 
slaughtering  the  Indians  at  Pavonia  in  revenge  for  the  brutal 
outrages  perpetrated  by  them  on  the  Dutch  settlers  in  that 
vicinity,  speaks  of  it  as  having  occurred  in  1630.  The  j)as- 
sage  to  which  I  refer  is  brief,  and  I  will  repeat  it:  "Consider, 
sir,  what  good  will  it  do.'  We  know  that  we  lost  our  set- 
tlement at  the  Hoorn  Kill  in  1630  by  mere  jangling  with 
the  Indians,  when  thirty-two  of  our  men  were  murdered." 
De  Vries  came  with  it  as  director-general  and  in  command 
of  the  expedition  from  its  departure  from  the  shores  of 
Holland.  His  birth  and  residence  was  in  the  little  city  of 
Hoorn  in  that  country,  a  seaport  on  the  Zuyder  Zee,  and 
it  is  said  that  he  conferred  the  name  of  Hoorn  Kill  on  the 
creek  in  honor  of  it.  The  colony  certainly  consisted  of  a 
small  Christian  community  of  European  settlers  expressly 
formed  and   organized  for  colonizing  that  portion  of  the 


BOl'SDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  13 

southern  shores  of  the  Delaware  Bay,  and  which  was  not 
only  done  with  all  the  regularity  and  method  usual  in  such 
cases,  but  its  arrival  on  our  shores  was  preceded  by  a  larger 
purchase  of  land  from  the  natives  for  the  purpose  of  its 
plantation  than  had  perhaps  occurred  before  in  the  history 
of  any  of  the  English  or  Dutch  settlements.  Including  De 
Vries,  it  must  have  numbered  on  its  landing  at  least  thirty- 
three  men,  to  say  nothing  of  women  or  children.  A  gen- 
eral storehouse  and  a  stockade  fort,  named  Fort  Oplandt, 
was  erected  on  a  well-selected  site  on  the  northern  bank  of 
the  creek,  not  far  above  the  mouth  of  it,  and  a  body  of  land 
adjacent  to  it,  pronounced  by  enthusiastic  Dutch  admirers 
several  years  later  to  be  the  best  in  all  the  New  Netherlands, 
was  laid  out  for  the  habitation  and  cultivation  of  the  set- 
tlers, and  named  Swandale  in  compliment  to  the  natural 
rights  of  the  large  number  of  swans  that  were  now  to  be 
dispossessed  of  it  as  a  favorite  bay-side  resort  for  them  at 
that  season  of  the  year.  But  De  Vries  was  obliged  to  leave 
it  before  the  close  of  the  summer  and  return  to  Holland  on 
business  connected  with  the  enterprise.  He  had  gained 
from  the  beginning  of  the  settlement  the  esteem  and  respect 
of  the  natives,  and  left  it  with  relations  of  entire  concord 
and  amity  subsisting  between  them  and  the  colonists;  but 
for  reasons  on  which  neither  history  nor  tradition  sheds  any 
further  light  than  we  have  from  the  brief  passage  which  I 
have  just  read  from  his  letter  referring  to  it  (for  the  account 
given  of  it  to  him  by  a  native  on  his  return  to  the  Hoorn 
Kill  was  evidently  a  faction  of  the  Indian's  imagination 
purely),  they  were  suddenly  assailed  and  totally  massacred 
by  the  savages  before  the  fall  of  the  leaves  of  that  season. 


14  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

while  at  work  in  their  fields,  with  the  exception  of  two,  who 
were  butchered  with  like  barbarity  in  the  storehouse.  If  it 
occurred  in  1631,  the  intelligence  of  it  must  have  reached 
De  Vries  very  soon  after  his  arrival  in  Holland.  He  was, 
however,  so  shocked  and  discouraged  by  the  disaster  that  he 
was  unable  for  a  considerable  time  to  pay  any  attention  to 
business;  and  yet  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  he  was 
liack  again  at  the  Hoorn  Kill  with  several  new  colonists 
from  Holland  early  in  December,  1631,  prepared  to  enter  by 
the  opening  of  the  next  spring  upon  his  novel  experiment 
of  whale-fishing  in  the  Delaware  Bay,  and  on  what  is  now 
called  Lewes  Beach,  and  whibh  was  industriously  prosecuted 
through  the  spring,  summer,  and  fall  of  1632,  not  without 
some  success,  for  a  considerable  quantity  of  whale  oil  was 
shipped  by  him  during  the  season  to  Amsterdam,  but  the 
business  having  proved  more  expensive  and  less  profitable 
than  was  expected  by  him,  it  was  not  resumed  the  following 
year;  and  early  in  the  spring  of  it  De  Vries  himself  re- 
moved to  the  North  River,  where  at  a  later  period  he  found 
congenial  employment  in  establishing  several  Dutch  settle- 
ments, but  retaining  his  interest  in  the  lands  purchased  at 
the  Hoorn  Kill  and  on  our  bay-shore  until  the  skle  of  it  by 
the  copartnership  to  the  City  of  Amsterdam  in  1635. 

If  I  have  detained  you  too  long  with  this  tedious  and  pro- 
tracted detail  of  the  plantation  of  De  Vries's  colony,  as  it 
has  generally  been  styled,  on  the  Hoorn  Kill,  the  great  his- 
torical importance  of  it  will  excuse  me  when  I  inform  you 
that  it  was  the  sole  fact  on  which  the  question  of  title  to  the 
three  lower  counties  on  the  Delaware,  now  constituting  our 
State,  between  Lord  Baltimore  and  the  Dutch  of  the  New 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  15 

Netherlands  in  the  first  instance,  and  subsequently  between 
his  lordship  and  William  Penn,  originally  and  finally  de- 
pended for  its  solution  during  a  period  of  just  one  hundred 
years  thereafter,  or  up  to  the  year  of  173'2.  the  date  of  the 
first  agreement  entered  into  between  their  respective  heirs- 
at-law  for  the  amicable  settlement  of  it  by  mutual  compact 
between  the  conflicting  claimants.  For,  with  the  exception 
of  that  settlement,  and  with  all  the  light  and  information 
which  the  most  patient  and  thorough  historical  research  and 
examination  has  in  the  mean  time  shed  upon  the  subject,  I 
am  constrained  to  say  that  there  is  no  good  reason  for  be- 
lieving that  there  was  a  solitary  Christian,  or  child  of  civili- 
zation, within  the  limits  of  what  now  constitutes  the  State 
of  Delaware,  or  anywhere  west  of  the  Delaware  River,  on 
the  20th  day  of  June,  1632,  nor  until  nearly  six  years  after 
that  date. 

In  the  due  course  and  order  of  historical  events  which 
now  follow  in  quick  succession,  I  must  next  pass  from  the 
shores  of  the  Delaware  to  those  of  the  Chesapeake.  In  the 
year  1632,  George  Calvert,  Baron  of  Baltimore,  having  three 
years  before  visited  the  English  settlements  in  Virginia,  and 
made  some  exploration  of  the  Chesapeake  Bay,  presented 
a  petition  to  his  Majesty  Charles  I.  for  a  grant  of  lands 
in  that  region  of  the  country  lying  between  the  38tli  and 

« 

40th  degrees  of  north  latitude,  in  which  he  stated  that  it 
had  not  up  to  that  time  been  planted  by  any  Christian 
people,  although  it  was  then  inhabited  in  some  parts  of  it 
by  a  certain  barbarous  people,  having  no  knowledge  of 
Almighty  God.  The  application  was  graciously  entertained, 
and  a  royal  order  was  given  for  the  preparation  of  letters 


16  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

patent  for  the  grant  pursuant  to  his  petition,  and  which  were 
soon  afterwards  prepared  with  a  recital  referring  to  his  peti- 
tion and  the  representation  contained  in  it,  that  it  was  a 
region  of  country  hitherto  uncultivated,  and  partly  occu- 
pied by  savages  having  no  knowledge  of  the  Divine  Being, 
and  with  the  boundaries  of  it  described  as  all  that  part  of 
the  peninsula  or  chersonese  lying  in  the  parts  of  America 
between  the  ocean  on  the  east  and  the  Bay  of  Chesapeake 
on  the  west,  divided  from  the  residue  thereof  by  a  right 
line  drawn  from  the  promontory  or  headland  called  Wat- 
kin's  Point,  situate  on  the  bay  aforesaid,  near  the  river 
Wighes  on  the  west,  unto  the  main  ocean  on  the  east; 
and  between  that  boundary  on  the  south,  unto  that  part  of 
the  bay  of  Delaware  on  the  north  which  lieth  under  the 
40th  degree  of  north  latitude  from  the  equinoctial  where 
New  England  is  terminated;  and  all  the  tract  of  that  land 
within  the  metes  underwritten,  that  is  to  say,  passing  from 
the  said  bay  called  Delaware  Bay  in  a  right  line  by  the 
degree  aforesaid  unto  the  true  meridian  of  the  first  fountain 
of  the  river  of  Pattowmac,  thence  verging  towards  the  south 
unto  the  farther  bank  of  the  said  river,  and  following  the 
same  on  the  west  and  south  unto  a  place  called  Cinquack, 
situate  near  the  mouth  of  the  said  river  where  it  disem- 
bogues into  the  aforesaid  bay  of  Chesapeake,  and  thence 
by  the  shortest  line  unto  the  aforesaid  promontory  or  place 
called  Watkin's  Point. 

It  was  well  known  at  that  time  that  a  right  line  drawn  as 
described,  from  Watkin's  Point  on  the  Chesapeake  Bay  due 
east  across  our  peninsula  to  the  ocean,  would  be  directly 
under  the  i>arallel  of  the  38th  degree  of  north  latitude.    No 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  17 

part  of  the  Delaware  Bay,  however,  is  as  far  north  as  the 
40th  degree,  nor  is  any  part  of  the  Delaware  River  below 
the  city  of  Philadelphia.  And  this  clearly  shows  that  his 
lordship  was  mistaken  at  the  very  outset  as  to  the  distance 
in  degrees  from  Watkin's  Point  to  Cape  Henlopen,  and 
could  not  have  known  that  the  40th  degree  of  north  lati- 
tude would  include  within  his  grant  not  only  the  whole  of 
the  peninsula  north  of  Watkin's  Point,  and  the  whole  of 
the  Delaware  Bay,  but  also  nearly  one-half  of  the  State  of 
New  Jersey.  But  this  may  be  in  some  degree  accounted 
for  by  the  well-known  fact  that  even  British  sovereigns  and 
British  noblemen  at  that  day  supposed  that  a  degree  of 
latitude,  as  far  north  of  the  equator  as  those  named  in  the 
patent,  measured  but  sixty  miles  to  the  degree.  For  it  is 
but  reasonable  to  presume  that  Lord  Baltimore  dictated  the 
description  of  the  boundaries  embodied  in  it.  Before,  how- 
ever, the  patent  was  issued  Lord  Baltimore  died,  and  pur- 
suant to  the  order  of  the  king  the  necessary  alterations 
were  made  in  it,  and  on  the  20th  day  of  June,  1632,  the 
patent  was  issued  to  his  eldest  son  and  the  heir-at-law  of 
his  title  and  estates,  Cecilius,  Lord  Baltimore.  It  was 
named  in  the  patent  the  Province  of  Maryland  at  the  in- 
stance of  the  king  in  honor  of  the  queen,  Henrietta  Maria. 
I  deem  it  proper  here  to  observe  that  by  the  law  of  na- 
tions as  then  recognized  by  the  maritime  powders  of  Europe, 
and  which  the  recent  discovery  of  the  New  World  rendered 
more  important  than  it  had  ever  been  before,  that  no  dis- 
covery and  exploration  merely  of  a  new  island  or  a  new 
country  inhabited  by  barbarians  only,  even  when  followed 
by  a  formal  grant  or  cession  of  it  from  the  sovereign  under 


18  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

whose  flag  or  auspices  it  had  been  made,  could  confer  any 
right  or  title  to  it  upon  the  discoverer  until  he  took  posses- 
sion of  it,  or  some  part  of  it,  but  when  that  had  been  done 
his  title  would  commence  from  the  date  of  his  grant;  and 
that  possession  should  follow  discovery  to  give  a  title  in  all 
such  cases. 

Lord  Baltimore  had  contemplated  on  the  receipt  of  his 
patent  visiting  his  province  in  company  with  the  first  set- 
tlers despatched  to  it,  but  circumstances  prevented  it,  and 
under  his  authority  and  appointment  his  brother,  I^onard 
Calvert,  conducted  the  expedition  organized  for  the  purpose 
of  taking  formal  possession  of  it  under  his  letters  patent, 
and  of  planting  the  first  settlement  under  it  in  the  province. 
It  consisted  of  some  two  hundred  Englishmen,  the  most  of 
them  possessed  of  considerable,  and  a  few  of  very  handsome 
means,  the  design  being  to  found  a  miniature  government 
in  the  province  on  the  model  of  the  British  constitution, 
with  an  order  of  nobility  possessing  large  landed  estates. 
The  expedition  sailed  from  England  in  a  ship  named  the 
Ark  and  a  pinnace  belonging  to  Lord  Baltimore  of  about 
fifty  tons  named  the  Dove,  and  after  a  tedious  voyage  by 
the  Canary  Islands  and  the  southern  passage  of  that  early 
period,  arrived  in  the  Chesapeake,  and  made  their  first  set- 
tlement on  the  Potomac  River,  not  far  above  the  mouth  of 
it  and  between  it  and  the  western  shore  of  the  bay,  at  a 
place  which  they  named  St.  Mary,  on  the  27th  day  of  March, 
1634;  and  Leonard  Calvert  now  assumed  the  office  of  first 
governor  of  the  province. 

Virginia  had  long  prior  to  the  date  of  Lord  Baltimore's 
patent,  claimed  not  only  the  w^hole  of  the  Chesapeake  Bay 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  19 

and  the  regions  surrounding  it,  but  even  as  far  as  the  41st 
degree  of  north  latitude,  and  as  early  as  1627  the  governor 
of  that  colony  had  granted  to  one  of  the  early  settlers  of 
Virginia,  William  Claybourne,  who  had  been  a  member  of 
the  council  and  the  secretary  of  the  colony,  authority  to 
discover  the  head  of  the  bay,  or  any  part  of  Virginia  lying 
between  the  34th  and  41st  degrees  of  north  latitude,  and 
in  1631  Charles  the  First  had  granted  him  a  royal  license  to 
make  discoveries  and  to  traflBc  with  the  natives,  under  which 
he  had  in  that  year  with  a  party  of  men  from  Virginia 
taken  possession  of  Kent  Island  in  the  Chesapeake  Bay, 
and  almost  in  the  centre  of  the  Province  of  Maryland,  and 
had  established  a  trading-post  on  it,  and  had  been  so  in 
possession  of  it  from  1631  until  the  arrival  and  settlement 
of  the  first  provincial  colonists  under  Governor  Calvert  at 
St.  Mary's.  The  first  question,  however,  that  was  raised  as 
to  the  legal  right  and  title  of  Lord  Baltimore  to  the  territory 
designated  and  described  in  his  patent  was  between  him 
and  the  authorities  of  Virginia,  and  went  to  the  whole  of 
the  grant,  for  by  them  the  validity  of  it  was  denied  in  toto. 
The  legal  controversy  which  arose  out  of  it  between  them 
ultimately  went  to  the  privy  council  of  the  king  for  adjudi- 
cation and  settlement,  but  they  declined  to  entertain  it,  and 
left  the  parties  to  their  remedies  by  due  course  of  law. 
Claybourne  had  also  from  the  first  repudiated  and  refused 
to  recognize  the  validity  of  the  grant  and  the  authority  and 
jurisdiction  of  the  government  of  the  province  over  Kent 
Island,  and  the  governor  having  within  one  year  after  the 
settlement  issued  an  order  for  his  arrest,  a  hostile  collision 
occurred  between  their  respective  armed  forces,  consisting 


20  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

of  two  small  vessels  sent  against  him  by  the  governor,  and 
one  cruising  under  the  orders  of  Claybourne,  in  which  one 
man  on  the  governor's  and  several  on  Claybourne's  side 
were  killed.  The  latter,  however,  was  defeated,  and  was 
obliged  to  flee  for  refuge  to  Virginia,  whereupon  commis- 
sioners were  sent  from  the  province  to  demand  him  of  the 
colony,  but  the  governor  of  it  refusing  to  surrender  him, 
the  assembly  of  the  province  proceeded  to  seize  and  forfeit 
his  property  on  the  island,  and  he  was  also  indicted,  tried,  and 
convicted  in  his  absence  of  the  combined  crimes  of  murder, 
piracy,  and  sedition.  He  afterwards  went  to  England  and  pre- 
sented a  petition  to  the  king,  Charles  the  First,  setting  forth 
his  grievances  and  praying  for  the  redress  of  them,  which 
with  the  testimony  produced  in  support  of  them,  made  such 
an  impression  on  the  mind  of  his  Majesty  that  he  severely 
reprimanded  Lord  Baltimore  for  having,  contrary  to  his 
commands,  dispossessed  him  of  Kent  Island  and  slain  several 
of  the  inhabitants  of  it.  Nevertheless,  in  the  following  year 
the  lords  of  the  committee  of  the  privy  council  of  the  king 
for  trade  and  plantations  rendered  a  report  in  favor  of  Lord 
Baltimore's  title  And  yet  even  this  did  not  terminate  the 
angry  strife  and  contention,  for  serious  political  disturbance 
and  commotion  afterwards  arising  in  the  province.  Clay- 
borne,  who  had  in  the  mean  time  returned  from  England 
and  retaken  possession  of  Kent  Island,  availed  himself  of 
the  occasion  to  manifest  his  spirit  of  resistance  again  to  the 
authority  of  the  proprietary,  and  the  effort  of  the  governor 
to  dispossess  him  not  only  failed,  but  Claybourne  and  his 
partisans,  with  the  aid  of  the  political  malcontents  referred 
to,  compelled  the  governor  of  the  provinc*^  in  turn  to  flee 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  21 

for  refuge  to  Virginia,  and  thereby  gained  for  a  time  the  com- 
plete control  of  the  government  of  it.  This  occurred  in  1645. 
But  Governor  Calvert  returned  with  a  sufficient  military 
force  to  re-establish  his  authority  in  1647,  and'Claybourne 
was  again  driven  from  the  island.  Two  years  later  the 
execution  of  Charles  the  First  followed,  and  the  Common- 
wealth of  England  was  established  under  the  protectorate  of 
Oliver  Cromwell,  and  in  1652,  commissioners  having  been 
sent  from  England  to  Virginia  and  Maryland  to  reduce 
them  to  obedience  to  the  Commonwealth,  with  whom  Clay- 
bourne  was  associated,  he  again  regained  possession  of  the 
island.  The  authority  of  the  proprietary  and  his  govern- 
ment in  the  province  was  now  completely  superseded  and 
suspended,  and  upon  the  effort  of  Lord  Baltimore  to  recover 
it,  the  most  serious  collision  and  conflict  of  arms  which  had 
yet  occurred  in  the  province  ensued  between  his  forces  and 
those  of  Claybourne  and  his  political  partisans  in  1655.  It 
was  successful,  however,  although  it  was  not  until  the  year 
1658  that  the  authority  and  government  of  his  lordship 
was  completely  restored  in  his  province. 

Among  the  many  evils  and  misfortunes  resulting  to  his 
lordship  from  such  a  state  of  affairs  in  his  province  was  the 
notoriety  which  it  gave  from  the  start  to  the  question  in 
regard  to  the  validity  of  his  grant,  and  the  unfavorable 
impression  which  it  produced  upon  the  mind  of  the  king 
himself  on  discovering  for  the  first  time,  under  such  painful 
circumstances,  the  melancholy  fact  that  such  a  grave  and 
fatal  mistake  had  been  committed  in  issuing  the  royal  patent 
to  him  on  the  faith  of  the  representation  contained  in  the 
application,  that  there  were  none  but  Indians  or  barbarians 


22  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

then  inhabiting  any  part  of  the  territory  solicited  and 
granted;  and  I  think  it  will  hereafter  clearly  appear  in  the 
further  development  of  the  history  of  the  question  that  his 
lordship's  interests  in  the  province  never  recovered  from  the 
unfavorable  effects  then  produced  in  the  highest  places  in 
England  by  the  discovery  of  this  grave  and  serious  blemish 
in  the  very  inception  of  his  title. 

I  will  now  return  to  the  history  of  the  settlements  on  the 
Delaware,  and  after  having  traced  the  history  of  events 
on  the  Chesapeake,  so  far  as  it  is  necessary  for  my  present 
purpose  to  notice  them,  from  the  year  1631  to  1658,  the  first 
remark  which  I  have  to  make  on  returning  to  our  own 
shores  is,  that  there  is  a  singular  coincidence,  in  the  chron- 
ology at  least,  of  the  principal  events  in  the  cotemporaneous 
history  of  the  two  States  during  that  early  period,  notwith- 
standing the  marked  difference  in  the  European  races  which 
they  respectively  concern.  In  the  first  place,  the  first  civil- 
ized settlement  within  our  limits,  and  the  first  similar  settle- 
ment within  the  limits  of  Maryland  prior  to  the  date  of 
Lord  Baltimore's  patent,  were  almost  simultaneously  made 
by  different  European  races  and  under  different  European 
sovereignties;  and  while  our  history  is  subsequently  char- 
acterized during  that  period  by  strife  and  contention  of  a 
higher  historical  grade  and  dignity  between  rival  European 
races  for  the  possession  of  and  dominion  over  our  territory, 
so  far  as  the  epochs  or  eras  (if  they  deserve  such  an  appella- 
tion) of  each  is  concerned,  they  were  almost  as  simultaneous, 
although  during  the  greater  part  of  that  period  the  settlers 
on  the  Delaware  and  the  settlers  on  the  Chesapeake  within 
the  limits  of  Maryland  had  no  intercourse,  or  acquaintance 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  "ZS 

even,  with  each  other,  and  knew  about  as  little  of  each 
others'  troubles  or  disputes  as  if  they  had  been  settled  on 
the  opposite  sides  of  the  equator,  and  thirty -eight  or  forty 
degrees  from  it.  Both  the  Dutch  and  the  Swedes  knew 
from  the  time  almost  of  their  arrival  within  our  limits,  of 
Jamestown  and  Virginia,  and  of  the  claim  of  that  colony  to 
all  the  territory  on  the  Delaware,  but  I  question  if  any  one 
of  either  race  had  ever  heard  of  either  St.  Mary's  or  Kent 
Island  until  after  they  had  ceased  to  attract  any  particular 
attention  on  the  Chesapeake.  De  Vries  was  fully  informed 
of  the  English  claim  by  the  governor  of  Virginia  on  his 
visit  from  the  Hoorn  Kill  to  Jamestown  in  the  summer  of 
IGS^,  and  the  Swedes  learnt  of  it  in  like  manner  when  their 
first  expedition  touched  at  Jamestown  in  1638,  on  their 
voyage  from  Sweden  to  our  shores. 

The  first  event  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  notice  in 
the  cotemporaneous  history  of  the  two  States,  after  the 
settlement  of  De  Vries'  colony  on  the  Hoorn  Kill,  is  of 
the  date  of  1638,  and  which  occurred  during  the  progress 
of  the  first  controversy  between  Lord  Baltimore  and  Clay- 
borne  in  regard  to  his  title  to  Kent  Island,  and  in  the  same 
year  in  which  his  Majesty  rebuked  his  lordship  for  dispos- 
sessing him  of  it.  The  Dutch  West  India  Company,  which 
had  been  incorporated  by  the  States-General  of  the  United 
Netherlands  as  early  as  1621,  for  the  purposes  of  coloni- 
zing the  Dutch  possessions  in  this  country  and  promoting 
trade  and  commerce  in  all  the  regions  of  the  New  Nether- 
lands, as  those  possessions  were  then  for  the  first  time 
formally  denominated,  had  so  long  neglected  to  make  any 
settlement,  or  to  take  actual  possession  of  any  part  of  the 


24  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

country  on  the  western  side  of  the  Delaware  above  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  that  it  ultimately  led  to  an  effort  on  the 
part  of  one  of  the  original  promoters  and  most  active  mem- 
bers of  the  company,  who  had  become  dissatisfied  with 
the  management  of  its  affairs,  to  find  some  other  power  in 
Europe  to  undertake  the  enterprise,  and  it  was  such  a 
motive  that  prompted  Mr.  William  Unclincx,  of  the  City  of 
Am^terdairi,  to  repair  in  1624,  to  the  court  of  the  young  and 
able  sovereign  of  Sweden,  Gustavus  Adolphus  ("of  ever- 
blessed  memory,"  as  the  venerable  Campanius  invariably 
and  reverentially  styles  him  whenever  he  has  occasion  to 
mention  his  illustrious  name  in  his  Delaware  diary,  written 
several  years  after  his  untimely  and  lamented  death  on  the 
battle-field  of  Lutzen),  and  to  submit  to  him  a  plan  for  the 
formation  of  a  Swedish  West  India  Company  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  colonizing  the  neglected  regions  on  the 
Delaware.  That  young  and  magnanimous  monarch  em- 
braced the  flattering  overture,  I  apprehend,  with  too  much 
ardor  and  alacrity  to  inquire  sufficiently  into  any  mere  legal 
impediments  or  obstacles  which  might  lie  in  the  way  of  such 
a  grand  and  noble  proposition;  or,  if  he  did  so,  the  specious 
and  wily  Dutchman  and  shrewd  ex-member  of  the  Dutch 
West  India  Company  may  have  soon  satisfied  him  that 
there  were  no  obstructions  of  that  nature  in  the  way  of  the 
enterprise,  and  that  the  Dutch  company  already  had  more 
liand  than  it  either  wanted  or  needed  north  and  east  of  the 
Delaware.  A  West  India  Company  similar  to  that  in  the 
Netherlands  was  accordingly  incorporated  and  organized 
without  delay  in  that  kingdom;  and  with  the  animated 
spirit  and  enthusiastic  emulation  now  abroad  in  behalf  of 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  25 

the  measure,  and  the  influence  of  the  king's  example,  who 
subscribed  with  royal  liberality  to  the  stock  of  it,  princes 
and  prelates,  noblemen  and  commoners,  and  men  of  all 
classes,  as  well  as  ladies  of  the  highest  rank,  vied  with  each 
other  in  responding  with  like  promptitude  and  liberality,  to 
the  cordial  recommendation  of  their  sovereign  in  behalf  of 
it.  It  was  the  first  novelty  of  the  kind  perhaps,  which  had 
ever  caught  and  captivated  the  fancy  or  imagination  of  the 
Swedes  to  such  a  degree,  and  compared  with  which,  to 
them  at  least,  according  to  the  accounts  we  have  of  it,  the 
enchanting  hues  and  evanescent  splendors  of  all  lat^r  South- 
Sea  bubbles  must  have  seemed  but  pale  and  dim.  Before, 
however,  all  the  necessary  preparations  had  been  completed 
by  the  company  for  the  dispatch  of  the  first  expedition  of 
colonists  from  Sweden  to  the  Delaware,  their  young  and 
gallant  king,  who  was  now  acknowledged  and  hailed  with 
universal  acclaim  by  the  Protestants  of  Germany  as  the  royal 
champion  of  their  cause,  was  suddenly  drawn  into  the  vortex 
of  that  memorable  religious  conflict  of  nations  known  as  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  in  Europe,  and  all  further  proceedings 
by  the  company  and  the  government  for  the  plantation  of 
the  colony  were  interrupted  and  suspended,  until  several 
years  subsequent  to  his  fall  in  the  battle  before  mentioned, 
in  November,  163'-2,  after  a  rapid  series  of  brilliant  and  sur- 
prising victories  terminating  in  that  of  Lutzen,  although  he 
lost  his  life  in  it,  which  has  rarely,  if  ever,  been  surpassed 
in  the  wars  of  Europe.  But,  as  if  forewarned  by  some 
presentiment  of  his  approaching  doom,  amidst  the  perils 
and  vicissitudes  of  the  war  in  which  he  was  about  to  engage, 
he  had  prepared  in  advance  a  last  will  and  testament,  con- 


26  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

taining  particular  instructions  in  relation  to  the  guardianship 
and  education  of  his  only  child  and  heir  to  his  crown,  a 
young  and  tender  daughter,  and  with  it  another  paper  ad- 
dressed to  his  prime  minister,  Chancellor  Oxenstiern,  a  man 
of  great  ability  and  virtue,  as  well  as  devotion  to  his  king 
and  country,  enjoining  upon  him  in  any  event  or  contin- 
gency which  might  befall  him  personally  in  the  war,  as  a 
duty  not  to  abandon  this  great  enterprise  in  which  he  felt 
so  much  interest,  but  to  see  the  design  of  it  fully  carried 
into  execution  pursuant  to  the  directions  given  in  the  paper, 
and  in  accordance  with  the  views  which  he  had  often  before 
communicated  to  him  on  the  subject.  But  it  was  not  until 
after  the  war  in  which  he  fell  had  been  terminated  with 
the  brilliant  success  with  which  it  had  been  begun,  under 
the  able  ministry  of  Oxenstiern,  and  the  command  of 
generals  in  the  field  worthy  of  the  school  in  which  they 
had  been  trained  under  their  late  king,  and  not  until  five 
years  after  his  demise,  that  the  chancellor  was  prepared  to 
enter  upon  the  discharge  of  the  grave  duty  thus  enjoined 
upon  him.  Since  the  death  of  the  king  the  government 
of  the  country  had  been  vested  in  a  council  of  regency 
during  the  minority  of  the  young  queen,  of  which  Chan- 
cellor Oxenstiern  was  president,  and  who  was  also  one  of 
her  guardians. 

The  interesting  gentleman  from  Amsterdam  and  dissatis- 
fied ex-members  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  before 
referred  to,  and  who  had  been  so  successful  in  originating 
this  rival  company  at  the  court  of  Sweden,  had  also  by  this 
time  passed  from  the  stage  of  action  and  the  scene  of  his 
glory  to 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  '21 

The  undiscovered  country,  from  whose  bourne 
No  traveler  returns. 

And  yet,  strange  to  say,  just  about  this  time  while  Chan- 
cellor Oxenstiern  was  preparing  to  institute  active  proceed- 
ings in  the  undertaking,  another  gentleman  from  Holland, 
of  still  greater  eminence,  and  still  more  familiarly  acquainted 
with  the  affairs  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  and 
their  possessions  in  the  New  Netherlands,  turns  up  in 
his  place  at  Stockholm  and  the  court  of  Sweden,  and  also 
submits  a  plan  for  colonizing  the  western  banks  of  the 
Delaware,  under  the  charter  of  the  West  India  Company 
of  that  country,  and  modestly  suggested  his  willingness  to 
assume  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  conducting  their 
first  colony  to  our  shores  as  the  director-general  of  it.  And 
this  distinguished  Dutchman  was  no  other  than  Peter 
Minuitt,  Esq.,  late  director-general  of  the  New  Netherlands 
under  the  Dutch  West  India  Company,  from  1624  to  1632, 
eight  consecutive  years.  He  had,  of  course,  during  that 
time  become  very  familiarly  acquainted  with  all  their  pos- 
sessions, and  their  title  and  claims  to  the  same,  both  on  the 
North  and  the  South  River,  knew  all  about  the  settlement  of 
De  Vries's  colony  on  the  Hoorn  Kill,  was  director-general 
and  president  of  the  council  of  the  company  when  the 
Indian  delegation  from  the  village  there  appeared  before  it 
in  Fort  Amsterdam  in  1630,  to  acknowledge  the  sale  of  the 
salt-marsh  from  Cape  Henlopen  to  the  mouth  of  the  river 
to  the  Dutch  purchasers  before  mentioned,  and  was  still  in 
office  and  residing  there  when  the  colony  was  massacred. 
He  had,  however,  been  removed  from  office  without  his  own 
approbation  and  consent  by  the  company  in  1632.      The 


28  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

chancellor  was  very  favorably  impressed  with  his  manners 
and  address  and  general  intelligence,  and  particularly  with 
his  familiar  knowledge  of  the  geography  of  the  region,  its 
soil,  climate,  and  resources,  and  the  character  and  relations 
of  the  aboriginal  races,  or  Indian  tribes,  inhabiting  it,  and 
even  esteemed  himself  fortunate  in  finding  a  gentleman  so 
admirably  qualified  to  fill  the  responsible  position  for  which 
he  had  so  generously  tendered  his  services;  and  he  was 
accordingly  in  due  time  appointed  director-general  of  New 
Sweden,  that  name  having  already  been  conferred  on  the 
country  designed  to  be  settled  under  the  charter  and  grant 
of  the  company,  and  to  be  held  and  considered  as  an  ap- 
pendage to  the  crown  and  kingdom  of  Sweden. 

The  first  expedition  formed  for  colonizing  it  consisted  of 
some  fifty  settlers  duly  provided  and  furnished  for  the  pur- 
pose, which  embarked  from  Sweden  under  the  immediate 
command  of  the  director-general,  Mr.  Minuitt.  in  an  armed 
ship  of  the  navy  and  a  transport,  and  after  a  protracted 
voyage  of  several  months  by  the  southern  passage  and  a 
short  stoppage  at  Jamestown,  in  Virginia,  entered  the  capes 
of  the  Delaware  on  a  bright  and  balmy  day  in  the  month 
of  April,  1638.  They  came  in  with  a  fine  breeze  from  the 
southeast  and  all  sails  spread  to  it,  and  gliding  directly 
past  the  mouth  of  the  Hoorn  Kill,  stood  up  the  bay  some 
fifteen  miles  farther,  when  the  anchors  were  dropped,  the 
sails  were  furled,  the  boats  were  got  out,  and  the  whole 
community  was  in  due  time  rowed  ashore  at  a  much  less 
convenient  and  inviting  landing-place,  but  in  a  perfect  trans- 
port of  rapture  and  delight,  to  refresh  and  regale  themselves 
for  a  few  hours  on  that  genial  and  delicious  day,  upon  what 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  29 

is  now  termed  Mispillion  Point.  It  is  a  long,  low,  flat,  and 
sandy  cape  jutting  well  into  the  bay  when  viewed  from  Cape 
Henlopen  and  the  beach  of  Lewes  and  the  mouth  of  the 
creek,  and  could  have  possessed  even  at  that  day  no  attrac- 
tion beyond  the  fine  view  which  it  commanded  of  the  cres- 
cent curvature  of  the  western  shore  towards  the  Hoorn 
Kill  and  Cape  Henlopen,  the  whole  of  the  bay  below  and 
the  ocean  vista  through  the  capes,  of  which  one  would  sup- 
pose they  had  already  seen  enough  in  the  last  five  months 
to  be  sick  of  the  sight  of  it  for  as  many  more  at  least;  and 
yet  so  charmed  and  enchanted  were  they  with  the  spot,  that 
they  could  find  no  term  sufficiently  graphic  and  poetical  to 
express  their  unbounded  admiration  of  it  short  of  Paradise 
itself,  and  therefore  they  at  once  named  it  Paradise  Point. 
There  was  one,  however,  in  that  happy  company,  I  appre- 
hend, as  he  stood  in  their  midst  and  looked  towards  the 
Hoorn  Kill  and  recalled  the  recollection,  yet  fresh  in  his 
memory,  of  the  massacre  of  the  Dutch  colony  planted 
there,  and  of  the  sale  of  the  very  land  then  beneath  his  feet 
to  the  founders  of  it  with  his  own  sanction  and  approval 
but  a  few  years  before,  Avho  must  have  been  wholly  unable 
to  so  far  surrender  himself  to  the  common  illusion  prevail- 
ing around  him,  as  to  have  felt  for  a  moment  that  he  stood 
on  anything  like  holy  ground,  so  far,  at  least,  as  he  was 
concerned;  and  that  was  Peter  Minuitt  himself,  the  com- 
mander of  the  expedition,  and  now  the  director-general 
of  New  Sweden. 

But  the  site  of  their  first  settlement  in  this  country  had 
been  selected  before  their  embarkation  from  Sweden,  and  re- 
suming their  voyage  up  the  Delaware,they  entered  your  beauti- 


30  ADDRESS  OX  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

fill  river,  the  Christiana,  even  then,  by  the  broad  expanse  of 
its  waters,  at  least  more  deserving  of  being  so  called  than 
now,  and  sailing  on  some  two  miles  or  more,  landed  upon 
its  northern  bank,  on  a  firm  and  fast  foundation  in  nature,  if 
not  in  law,  at  a  place  then  named  and  ever  since  called,  I 
believe.  The  Rocks,  and  which  furnished  a  very  convenient 
wharf  for  the  purpose  already  made  to  their  hands.  And 
now  as  we  survey  in  imagination,  at  this  late  day,  all  the 
virgin  features  and  picturesque  beauty  of  the  natural  scene 
which  here  opened  for  the  first  time  to  their  astonished 
vision,  what  must  have  been  the  measure  of  their  admiration 
and  delight  when  they  compared  and  contrasted  it  w  ith  the 
scene  which  they  had  just  left  below!  And  if  but  the  day 
before  they  imagined  themselves  almost  in  heaven,  must 
they  not  have  thought  this  nothing  less  than  a  sudden  trans- 
lation to  the  very  empyrean  of  the  gods  themselves,  if  any 
of  them  had  ever  read  of  such  place  in  classic  story!  Minu- 
itt  had  never  visited  the  locality  before,  so  far  as  we  are 
informed,  but  that  he  had  learned  of  it  from  some  one  w^ho 
had  seen  it,  and  who  was  capable  of  portraying  the  scene  to 
him  with  some  degree  of  justice  and  fidelity,  there  can  be 
no  doubt — the  winding  Christiana  with  its  green  meadows 
on  the  one  side,  the  rocky  banks  and  the  water-power  of 
the  romantic  Brandywine  on  the  other,  their  confluence  in 
the  foreground  of  the  landscape,  and  flowing  with  united 
volume  in  full  view  to  the  broad  bosom  of  the  majestic  Dela- 
ware; all  this  and  doubtless  much  more  had  been  faithfully 
depicted  to  him,  and  he  certainly  exhibited  as  much  good 
taste  as  sound  judgment  in  selecting  it  for  the  site  of  his 
first  Swedish  settlement  within  our  limits.    This  settlement, 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  31 

the  second  made  within  the  Hmits  of  our  State,  became  in 
the  spring  of  1638  the  feeble  beginning  of  your  fair  and  beau- 
tiful city  of  Wilmington,  and  which  is  all  that  was  required 
to  crown  and  adorn  the  natural  embellishments  and  advan- 
tages of  the  original  site  with  the  flowers,  fruits,  products, 
and  structures  of  art,  labor,  culture,  commerce  and  manu- 
factures, civilization  and  Christianity,  to  make  it  what  it  has 
since  become,  one  of  the  fairest  and  finest  cities  of  its  class 
in  our  whole  country. 

The  first  thing  in  order  after  they  had  landed  upon  its 
banks  was  to  find  a  suitable  name  for  your  river  in  their 
own  vernacular  tongue.  And  where  or  in  what  language 
could  they  have  found  one  more  beautifully  appropriate 
on  such  an  occasion  than  the  chaste  and  sweet  and  sacred 
name  of  Christina,  in  honor  of  their  fair  young  queen,  sole 
daughter  of  the  house  and  heart  of  their  beloved  and  la- 
mented sovereign,  still  as  much  a  martyr  to  the  sacred 
cause  of  their  religious  faith,  as  a  glorious  monarch  in  their 
estimation,  then  in  the  twelfth  year  of  her  minority,  and  an 
object  of  tender  regard  and  solicitude  to  every  loyal  Swede 
the  world  over?  She  was  only  six  years  of  age  when  her 
father  fell  at  Lutzen,  but  was  now  pre-eminently  distin- 
guished for  all  the  brilliant  bloom  and  promise  which  so 
well  beseemed  the  rosy  dawn  of  such  a  splendid  career  and 
destiny  as  then  lay  in  prospect  before  her,  only  to  be,  to 
the  grief  and  astonishment  of  all  her  subjects,  so  soon  and 
so  strangely  and  mysteriously  darkened,  disappointed,  and 
with  thickening  clouds  overcast  after  ascending  the  throne, 
as  never  was  that  of  queen  or  royal  princess  before  or 
since  in  the  history  of  the  world.     But  as  a  just  and  meri- 


32  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

torious  tribute  to  the  memory  of  her  better  and  brighter 
and  more  happy  days,  is  it  not  to  be  regretted  that  it  was 
not  retained  in  all  its  pristine  purity  and  beauty  as  the  true 
name  of  it  to  this  day? 

The  next  thing  was  to  erect  a  fort  on  the  banks  of  it  at 
or  near  The  Rocks,  on  which  the  name  of  Fort  Christina 
was  bestowed,  and  which  became  for  many  years  afterwards 
the  only  name  by  which  the  settlement  formed  about  it  was 
called  and  known.  The  director-general  had  his  permanent 
residence  in  it  until  his  death,  three  years  afterwards.  He 
had  hardly  begun  to  build  it,  however,  before  he  received, 
from  the  director-general  of  the  New  Netherlands  residing 
in  Fort  Amsterdam,  a  formal  and  solemn  protest  against 
the  intrusion,  encroachment,  and  aggression  by  the  Swedes 
upon  their  territory  on  the  South  River,  and  asserting  in  the 
strongest  terms  their  unquestionable  right  and  title  to  the 
whole  South  River  of  the  New  Netherlands,  both  the  upper 
and  lower  parts  of  it,  and  denouncing  the  consequences  of 
his  own  conduct  against  him  to  the  last  extremity.  But 
Minuitt  neither  replied  to  it,  nor  paid  any  attention  to  it. 
The  former,  however,  proceeded  forthwith  to  repair  and  re- 
garrison  the  Dutch  Fort  Nassau,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Delaware  River,  just  below  Gloucester  Point,  and  to  main- 
tain it  in  a  proper  state  of  defence.  A  few  other  sparse  and 
scattering  Swedish  settlements  followed  the  first,  but  all  of 
them,  on  the  same  side  of  the  Delaware,  were  made  above 
the  Christina,  and  between  it  and  the  mouth  of  the  Schuyl- 
kill, chiefly  in  the  vicinity  of  Upland  or  Chester,  and  what 
is  now  marked  on  our  maps  and  called  the  Lazaretto,  but 
none  whatever  were  made  below  the  Christina,  although 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  33 

the  colonial  authorities  of  New  Sweden  claimed  to  have  ac- 
quired, as  early  as  1642,  the  Indian  title,  by  purchase  from 
the  natives,  toall  the  country  west  of  the  Delaware  from 
Cape  Henlopen  to  the  falls  at  Trenton,  and  that  they  had 
rightful  dominion  and  jurisdiction  over  it. 

A  controversy,  however,  not  only  at  once  arose  between 
the  Dutch  and  the  Swedes  in  regard  to  their  respective 
rights  and  claims  to  the  territory,  but  a  more  serious  dis- 
pute and  contention  soon  followed  it  in  relation  to  the  trade 
with  the  natives  on  the  Schuylkill  and  the  western  side  of 
the  Delaware  above  Fort  Christina,  and  the  control  of  the 
navigation  of  the  Delaware  River  in  connection  with  it, 
the  Swedes  progressively  and  practically  growing  bolder 
in  the  assertion  and  exercise  of  both,  as  rights  exclusively 
belonging  to  them,  and  which  were  sometimes  attended 
with  acts  of  violence  and  gross  aggressions  upon  the  Dutch; 
and  for  these  pretensions  on  their  part  it  was  found  that 
the  position  of  Fort  Christina,  being  below  that  of  the 
Dutch  Fort  Nassau  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Delaware, 
afforded  them  material  support  and  advantage.  This  con- 
sideration at  length  induced  Peter  Stuyvesant,  who  in  the 
mean  time  had  been  appointed  by  the  Dutch  West  India 
Company  the  director-general  of  the  New  Netherlands,  and 
had  taken  up  his  residence  in  New  Amsterdam,  as  the  set- 
tlement at  Fort  Amsterdam  was  now  named,  to  make  his 
first  visit  to  the  South  River  and  to  Printz,  then  governor  of 
New  Sweden,  and  residing  in  some  state  on  Tinicum  Island, 
with  a  view,  if  practicable,  to  effect  some  accommodation 
of  these  increasing  difficulties,  and  if  not,  to  erect  a  fort  on 
the  same  side  of  the  Delaware  and  below  Fort  Christina, 


34  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

to  counteract  the  advantage  which  the  Swedes  had  derived 
from  it  in  the  dispute  about  the  navigation  of  the  river, 
and  also  to  recover  without  any  further  hostile  movement 
or  demonstration  the  command  of  the  river  and  the  do- 
minion of  the  whole  country  on  the  western  side  of  the  bay 
and  river  from  the  Christina  to  Cape  Henlopen.  He  failed, 
however,  in  the  first  object  of  his  visit,  and  as  the  whole 
country  from  the  Christina  to  the  Hoorn  Kill  was  still  an 
Indian  wilderness,  he  made  a  hasty  but  sufficient  survey  of 
the  river  to  satisfy  himself  that  the  point  of  land  on  which 
New  Castle  several  years  afterwards  grew  into  a  settlement 
of  so  much  note  and  promise,  as  not  only  to  eclipse  the 
feeble  and  flickering  lustre  of  Fort  Christina,  but  even  to 
excite  serious  apprehensions  at  New  Amsterdam  at  one 
time  that  it  was  about  to  become  what  Carthage  had  been 
to  Rome,  so  far  as  the  embryo  city  of  New  York  was  just 
then  concerned,  was  the  true  strategic  point  for  the  erection 
of  the  fort  which  he  had  now  resolved  to  build  for  the  pur- 
poses which  he  had  in  view.  The  municipal-  government 
of  the  City  of  Amsterdam  now  held  the  legal  title  to  the 
Hoorn  Kill  and  all  our  bay  front  from  Cape  Henlopen 
to  Bomby  Hook  Roads,  and  as  he  knew  very  well  that 
the  Swedes  could  not  pretend  to  any  title  prior  to  theirs  to 
that  portion  of  the  country  below,  he  convened  a  general 
assembly  of  all  the  Indian  sachems  inhabiting  the  country 
from  the  Christina  to  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  after 
learning  from  them  that  they  had  never  sold  any  part  of 
it  to  the  Swedes,  he  concluded  a  contract  with  them  for 
the  purchase  of  it  on  behalf  of  his  company,  and  pro- 
ceeded, without  delay,  in  the  year  1651,  to  erect  a  fort  on 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  35 

the  point  I  have  mentioned,  and  to  garrison  it  with  a  suffi- 
cient Dutch  force  to  hold  it  against  any  the  Swedes  could 
then  bring  against  it,  and  which  he  named  Fort  Cassimer. 
A  few  Dutch  settlers  soon  collected  about  it,  and  it  became 
from  that  date  the  third  Christian  or  civilized  settlement 
within  the  limits  of  our  State.  Fort  Nassau  had  also  been 
abandoned  on  the  erection  of  Fort  Cassimir,  by  the  removal 
of  the  garrison  from  it  to  the  latter  post. 

The  West  India  Company  of  Sweden  had  formally  pro- 
tested against  these  proceedings  of  Stuyvesant,  and  their 
governor,  Printz,  after  having  repeatedly  admonished  them 
in  v'ain  of  their  danger  from  them,  and  of  the  necessity  of 
their  taking  more  decisive  steps  to  recover  the  ground 
which  they  had  lost  by  the  erection  of  Fort  Cassimer,  had 
at  length  resigned  the  office,  and  was  shortly  afterwards 
succeeded  by  John  Claudii  Rising,  under  the  title  of  direc- 
tor-general of  New  Sweden,  and  who  became,  for  a  brief 
period  at  least,  all  that  his  name  imports  in  our  language. 
Both  the  Dutch  and  the  Swedes  had  long  entertained  seri- 
ous and  growing  apprehensions  of  the  designs  of  the  British 
government  upon  the  whole  territory  of  both  companies, 
under  their  asserted  claim,  from  the  beginning  of  its  settle- 
ment, of  a  superior  title  to  it;  and  Rising's  official  instruc- 
tions, therefore,  particularly  admonished  him  to  proceed  in 
his  administration  of  affairs  in  New  Sweden  with  the  utmost 
prudence  and  circumspection,  and  to  avoid  by  all  means  any 
breach  of  friendship  with  either  the  Dutch  or  the  English, 
as  a  breach  with  the  former  might  afford  the  latter  an  oppor- 
tunity to  seize  Fort  Cassimer,  and  that  it  was  better  for  them 
that  it  should  continue  in  the  possession  of  the  Dutch  than 


36  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

fall  into  the  hands  of  their  more  powerful  and  dangerous 
neighbors  in  that  country.  He  was,  however,  to  employ 
every  peaceable  method  in  his  power,  without  resorting  to 
any  hostile  act,  to  induce  the  Dutch  to  abandon  and  relin- 
quish Fort  Cassimer  to  them.  Whether  he  had  secret  in- 
structions of  a  contrary  tenor  does  not  appear,  but  it  is,  at 
least  charitable,  for  his  sake  to  presume  that  he  had  from 
the  course  which  he  immediately  afterwards  adopted.  He 
embarked  from  Sweden  in  an  armed  ship,  with  military 
officers  and  troops  and  settlers  on  board,  amounting  in  all 
to  some  two  hundred  and  fifty  men,  and  arrived  in  the 
Delaware  in  the  latter  part  of  May,  1654.  On  ascending 
the  river  and  approaching  Fort  Cassimer  the  ship  was  pre- 
pared for  action,  and  rounding  to  opposite  the  fort,  fired  a 
salute  and  signalled  to  it  to  send  an  officer  on  board,  which 
was  soon  done  by  the  commandant  of  the  fort,  and  upon 
liis  arrival  on  board  Rising  informed  him  ^ho  he  was,  and 
at  once  demanded  the  surrender  of  it  as  on  Swedish  ground, 
and  with  it  the  surrender  of  the  river  also,  as  a  part  of  their 
possessions.  The  officer  from  the  fort  and  his  boat's  crew 
having  been  delayed  in  reaching  it  on  their  return,  and  re- 
ceiving no  answer  to  his  demand  in  the  mean  time,  the  next 
morning  he  landed  a  military  force  from  the  ship,  and  as 
much  by  surprise  as  by  force  stormed  and  seized  it  without 
resistance  at  the  point  of  the  sword  and  the  bayonet.  He 
did  not  propose  to  take  any  prisoners  of  war,  as  none  had 
been  declared,  or  any  intimation  given  of  his  hostile  inten- 
tion previous  to  the  demand  made  for  the  surrender  of  it, 
and  he  therefore,  after  suddenly  overpowering  and  disarm- 
ing the  Dutch  garrison,  chased  them  out  of  the  fort  at  the 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  37 

point  of  the  bayonet,  and  took  possession  of  it,  and  garri- 
soned it  with  his  own  forces.  He  also  proceeded  soon  after- 
wards to  improve,  enlarge,  and  strengthen  it,  and  to  change 
the  name  of  it  and  of  the  small  settlement  which  had  formed 
about  it  to  Fort  New  Anistel.  And  as  a  fit  conclusion  to 
this  brilliant  achivement  by  way  of  surprise,  he  immedi- 
ately communicated  by  letter  to  Governor  Stuyvesant  the 
first  intimation  he  had  of  it,  informing  him  of  what  he  had 
done,  but  intimating  that  he  could  have  no  further  corre- 
spondence with  him  on  the  subject,  and  that  any  discussion 
or  negotiation  in  regard  to  the  matter  must  be  referred  to 
•their  respective  sovereigns.  For  my  own  part,  I  do  not 
think  that  Stuyvesant  ever  thought  of  replying  to  that 
letter  by  means  of  paper,  pen,  and  ink,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  his  only  thought  from  that  moment  was  how  to 
get  even  with  him  in  the  way  of  mutual  surprises  in  that  line 
of  business,  so  that  Rising  should  have  nothing  to  boast 
of  on  that  account  when  it  should  be  finally  settled  between 
them.  In  a  few  days  after  the  capture  of  Fort  Cassimer, 
Rising  took  up  his  permanent  abode  in  Fort  Christina,  and 
made  it  not  only  his  headquarters,  but  the  seat  of  his  gov- 
ernment as  director-general  of  New  Sweden. 

The  indignation  produced  in  Holland  by  this  bold  and 
hostile  invasion  of  their  possessions  here  was  intense  and 
general,  and  the  immediate  effect  of  it  was  to  reduce  the 
long  pending  controversy  between  the  two  companies  and 
the  two  races  in  this  country  to  the  usual  and  last  resort 
in  such  cases,  the  arbitrament  of  arms.  Stuyvesant  was 
promptly  ordered  by  the  company  to  prepare  to  recover 
Fort  Cassimer  and  to  reduce  the  Swedes  to  entire  obedience 


38  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

to  their  authority  and  government  with  whatever  force 
might  be  necessary  for  the  purpose,  and  with  as  much 
despatch  as  practicable.  Meanwhile  corresponding  prep- 
arations were  made  for  the  emergency  by  the  company  in 
Holland,  and  even  recruiting  stations  were  opened  and 
drums  were  beaten  for  recruits  for  days  in  the  City  of  Am- 
sterdam for  the  great  war  that  had  at  last  broken  out 
between  the  Dutch  and  the  Swedes  in  America.  All 
Dutchmen  were  excited  everywhere.  Delaware  was  at 
stake,  and  nothing  short  of  the  speedy  and  complete  subju- 
gation and  conquest  of  New  Sweden  would  now  satisfy  the 
universal  expectation.  But  the  coolest  man  among  them- 
all  perhaps,  on  either  side  of  the  ocean,  was  Governor 
Stuyvesant.  He  had  neither  forgotten  that  surprising 
march  which  had  been  stolen  upon  him  by  the  dashing 
hero  of  New  Sweden,  nor  that  short  and  surprising  letter, 
in  which  he  had  condescended  to  apprise  him  of  it.  Stuy- 
vesant was  an  old  soldier  by  profession,  and  had  learnt 
the  art  of  war  in  a  subordinate  station  in  the  Low  Coun- 
tries, and  had  served  with  some  distinction  and  lost  a  leg 
in  battle  in  other  regions  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and 
who  now  begun  in  his  heart  to  realize  and  cherish  some  of 

"That  stern  joy  which  warriors  (eel 
In  foemen  worthy  of  their  steel," 

in  anticipation  of  the  pleasure  and  the  opportunity  which 
he  would  soon  have  of  surprising  Rising  in  turn  by  steal- 
ing a  similar  march  on  him.  He  accordinly  set  to  work 
with  as  much  secrecy  as  coolness  and  calculation  to  make 
all  his  preparations  for  a  combined  military  and  naval  ex- 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  3J) 

pedition  of  entirely  unnecessary  proportions  against  New 
Sweden,  his  only  points  of  attack  l)eing  Fort  New  Amstel, 
late  Fort  Cassimer,  and  Fort  Christina,  neither  of  which 
contained  a  garrison  of  more  than  thirty  or  forty  men,  and 
with  a  military  force  at  his  command  quite  equal  in  numbers 
to  the  entire  population  of  the  Swedish  settlements  on  the 
Delaware,  women  and  children  included.  And  yet,  he  con- 
ducted all  his  preparations  for  the  occasion  with  so  much 
patience,  prudence,  and  circumspection  through  a  period  of 
nearly  one  year,  that  Rising  received  no  intimation  of  them 
at  Fort  Christina,  except  by  admonition  from  friendly  In- 
dians towards  the  last,  who,  it  seems,  had  learnt  more  of  what 
was  going  on  in  New  Amsterdam  than  he  had;  and  who, 
even  then,  seemed  never  to  have  apprehended  or  imagined 
that  the  object  of  such  an  expedition  on  Stuyvesant's  part 
was  anything  more  than  the  recovery  of  Fort  Cassimer  and 
the  country  below  the  Christina. 

The  Dutch  West  India  Company  had  promised  Stuy- 
vesant  from  the  first  assistance  in  vessels,  munitions,  and 
soldiers  from  Holland,  and  had  directed  him  to  impress 
into  his  service,  at  their  expense,  any  vessels  in  the  New 
Netherlands  that  the  occasion  might  require,  and  had 
already  sent  over  to  New  Amsterdam  one  man-of-war  and 
two  other  ships,  with  men  and  munitions,  whilst  Stuyve- 
sant,  by  hiring  and  impressment,  had  added  four  others  to 
the  number,  and  among  them  a  French  privateer,  captain 
and  crew,  which  had  been  hovering  on  the  coast  in  pursuit 
of  prey  on  the  commerce  of  any  nation  the  King  of  France 
was  then  at  war  with,  and  had  just  come  into  New  Amster- 
dam for  water  and  stores.    And  with  this  formidable  Dutch 


40  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

armada,  as  it  may  well  be  called,  considering  the  era,  locality, 
and  destination  of  it,  consisting  of  seven  sail,  and  containing 
from  six  to  seven  hundred  men  in  all,  he  sailed  for  the 
capes  of  the  Delaware  on  the  5th  day  of  September,  1655, 
which  he  entered  the  next  morning,  with  his  flotilla  well  in 
line,  but  spent  several  days  in  the  lower  part  of  the  river  in 
marshalling  and  arranging  his  military  forces  preparatory 
to  landing  them  in  sections,  with  their  proper  officers  and 
colors,  at  their  place  of  destination.  Rising  was  now  at 
Christina,  but  had  learnt  enough  from  the  sources  which 
I  have  mentioned  a  short  time  before  this,  to  do  the  best 
he  could  to  prepare  Fort  New  Amstel  for  the  impending 
crisis,  and  to  order  the  commandant  not  to  allow  the  fleet 
to  pass  it,  if  he  could  prevent  it,  or  without  firing  upon  it. 
Both  orders,  however,  he  flatly  disobeyed,  for,  after  getting 
under  way  again,  the  fleet  ascended  the  river,  and  the  whole 
of  it  passed  the  fort  without  any  effort  on  his  part  to  arrest 
or  prevent  it,  and  came  to  anchor  above  it,  out  of  reach  of 
its  guns.  And  now  ensued  a  display .  of  military  genius, 
skill,  and  science  on  the  part  of  Stuyvesant,  considering 
the  overwhelming  superiority  of  the  force,  land  and  naval, 
imder  his  command,  which  must  have  amused  Irving  very 
much  in  his  young  days  of  authorship,  and  tempted  him,  in 
his  burlesque  history  of  New  York  and  Delaware  at  that 
early  period,  to  present  the  gallant  hero  and  Dutch  con- 
queror of  New  Sweden  in  such  a  ludicrous  and  comical 
aspect  in  the  fictitious  pages  of  the  simple  and  venerable 
Dutch  historian,  Diedrich  Knickerbocker,  as  to  give  great 
offence  to  his  descendants  in  New  York  at  the  time  of  its 
publication.     For  it  would  really  seem  from  the  excessive 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  41 

amplitude  of  his  preparations  for  it,  and  from  the  slow  and 
exceedingly  cautious  manner  in  which  he  proceeded  to 
take  both  Fort  New  Amstel  and  Fort  Christina,  weak  and 
feeble  as  they  were,  that  he  was  actuated  all  the  tune  by 
the  supreme  and  humane  desire  and  intention  of  achieving 
the  conquest  without  anybody's  being  possibly  hurt  on 
either  side.  And  such  was  in  fact  the  result.  He  at  once 
summoned  the  fort  to  surrender,  but  the  commandant  not 
complying  with  his  demand,  he  landed  all  his  troops  out  of 
reach  of  cannon-shot,  and  then  proceeded  to  invest  it  by 
posting  a  detachment  about  five  miles  off  to  watch  Fort 
Christina,  and  another  somewhat  nearer  to  cut  off  any  rein- 
forcement or  relief  from  that  quarter,  and  then  by  digging 
trenches  and  throwing  up  embankments,  and  by  what,  I 
believe,  is  termed  in  the  military  art  gradual  approaches, 
to  get  the  residue  of  his  forces  near  enough  to  the  works, 
under  entirely  safe  cover,  to  open  his  guns  upon  its  log 
battlements.  He  had  in  the  mean  while  repeated  his  de- 
mand for  its  surrender,  and  at  last  peremptorily,  with  a 
solemn  threat  of  opening  his  guns  upon  it  forthwith  in  case 
of  refusal,  when  the  commandant,  to  save  any  further  use- 
less waste  of  time,  concluded  to  surrender,  and  accordingly 
capitualted  on  the  very  favorable  terms  offered,  without  any 
one  being  hurt,  even  by  accident,  on  either  side;  and  New 
Sweden  was  half  conquered  already.  He  next  proceeded 
in  like  manner  against  Fort  Christina,  ordering  his  armed 
ship  and  the  French  privateer  round  into  the  Christina  and 
into  such  a  position  as  to  rake  the  fort  with  their  guns,  and 
then  spent  twelve  days  in  investing  it  and  in  erecting  half  a 
dozen  different  batteries  on  the  several  commanding  posi- 


42  ADDHESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

tions  surrounding  it,  mounting  in  the  aggregate  not  less 
than  twenty  cannons,  independent  of  the  guns  of  his  two 
armed  ships,  when,  on  his  final  and  peremptory  summons, 
it  followed  the  example  of  Fort  New  Amstel,  and  surren- 
dered with  preciselj^  the  same  result, — nobody  hurt  and  no 
powder  l)urnt,  which  fortunately,  perhaps,  for  all  concerned, 
happened  to  be  a  very  scarce  article  in  Fort  Christina  just 
at  that  time.  The  capitulation  was  also  on  equally  liberal 
and  favorable  terms.  Stuyvesant  even  treated  Rising  in 
particular,  quite  generously  and  handsomely,  for  the  ex- 
chequer, both  public  and  private,  of  the  latter  being  now 
in  (juite  a  collapsed  condition,  he  loaned  him  money 
enough  to  pay  his  expenses  back  to  Sweden.  The  sum- 
mary effect  of  this  last  surrender  was  to  efface  New  Sweden 
forever  from  the  map  of  our  country.  The  date  of  it  was 
the  25th  of  September,  1655.  From  the  best  information 
which  we  have  on  the  subject,  I  do  not  think  the  whole 
population  of  the  Swedish  settlements  on  the  Delaware, 
men,  women,  and  children  included,  amounted  to  more 
than  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  souls  at  that  time. 
One  of  the  results  of  this  conquest  was  to  increase  the 
previous  indebtedness  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company 
to  the  City  of  Amsterdam  to  so  large  an  amount  as  to  induce 
them,  together  with  other  considerations,  to  apply  to  the 
city  government  to  accept  and  assume  the  proprietorship 
and  dominion  of  all  their  possessions  on  the  Delaware 
below  the  Christina  in  satisfaction  of  the  debt,  which  was 
assented  to,  and  soon  after  the  same  were  duly  relinquished 
and  conveyed  to  the  city;  after  which  they  were  called  the 
possessions  of  the  colony  of  the  City  of  Amsterdam,  or  the 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  43 

City  Colony,  the  company  still  retaining,  as  before,  all  north 
of  the  Christina,  including  the  fort  and  settlement  about  it 
bearing  that  name.  The  authorities  of  the  City  of  Amster- 
dam seem  at  once  to  have  conceived  the  idea  of  building  up 
a  settlement  and  a  port  on  the  South  River  that  should 
equal  and  rival  New  Amsterdam  on  the  North  River,  and 
to  have  selected  New  Amstel  for  that  purpose;  and  so  zeal- 
ously did  they  embark  in  the  enterprise,  and  liberally  and 
generously  promote  and  stimulate  the  growth  of  it,  that  it 
contained  more  than  one  hundred  houses,  a  population  of 
five  or  six  hundred  inhabitants,  and  some  twenty  to  thirty 
farms  around  it,  by  the  year  1659;  and  it  was  probably  this 
unexampled  growth  and  prosperity  of  New  Amstel  that  first 
attracted  the  special  attention  of  Lord  Baltimore  and  his 
oflBcial  representatives  in  the  Province  of  Maryland,  so  soon 
after  their  domestic  commotions  and  conflicts  had  been  suffi- 
ciently composed  and  settled  in  the  centre  of  the  province, 
to  admit  of  their  turning  their  attention  to  his  interest  in 
any  other  direction,  and  which,  as  we  have  before  seen,  was 
not  until  the  year  1658.  New  Amstel  had  now  become 
the  seat  of  government  of  all  the  possessions  belonging  to 
the  City  of  Amsterdam,  or  the  City  Colony,  and  had  a 
director-general  and  council  residing  in  it,  who  had  juris- 
diction over  all  of  its  possessions,  the  former  being  ap- 
pointed by  the  authorities  of  the  city;  and,  furthermore,  it 
was  not  until  the  year  1659  that  it  first  became  known  to 
any  settler  within  our  limits  that  Lord  Baltimore  had  any 
claim  or  pretension  whatever  to  any  territory  on  the  Dela- 
ware. That  information  was  first  communicated  by  a  mem- 
ber of  the  provincial  council  residing  on  the  Eastern  Shore, 


44  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

to  the  director-general  of  the  City  Colony  at  New  Amstel,  by 
a  messenger  sent  by  the  latter  to  him  with  a  letter  addressed 
to  the  governor  of  the  province,  and  a  request  that  he  would 
forward  it  to  the  governor,  and  which  contained  a  respectful 
application  for  the  surrender  of  five  or  six  soldiers  who  had 
recently  deserted  from  the  fort  at  New  Amstel  and  fled  into 
the  province,  and  which  he  politely  received  and  promised 
to  forward  as  requested;  but  he,  at  the  same  time,  took 
occasion  to  instruct  the  messenger  to  inform  the  gentleman 
who  had  sent  him,  that  he  then  had  in  his  possession  a 
commission  from  Lord  Baltimore  to  go  to  New  Amstel 
and  demand  the  possession  of  it  in  his  name  as  rightfully 
belonging  to  him,  because  he  believed  that  it  was  within 
the  limits  of  his  Province  of  Maryland,  but  that  his  lordship 
had  since  arrived  in  the  province,  and  had  ordered  that  all 
the  lands  between  the  degrees  of  his  grant  should  be  sur- 
veyed, and  as  soon  as  ascertained,  that  they  should  be 
reduced  to  his  authority  and  jurisdiction  without  fail  and 
without  relinquishing  any  part  of  them.  The  communica- 
tion was  verbal  merely,  but  it  was  duly  delivered  by  the 
messenger  on  his  return  to  the  director-general,  and  as 
soon  as  it  became  known,  which  was  instantly,  of  course, 
the  universal  surprise  and  astonishment  which  it  at  once 
produced  was  simply  stunning  on  all  New  Amstel;  and 
from  the  account  we  have  of  the  sudden  panic  into  which 
they  were  thrown  by  it,  some  of  the  weak-kneed  inhab- 
itants of  the  place  would,  if  they  could,  have  instantly  fled 
from  it  in  the  opposite  direction,  so  completely  were  they 
appalled  and  paralyzed  by  it.  This  occurred  in  the  month 
of  June,   1659. 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  45 

In  the  month  of  August  of  the  same  year,  at  a  meeting 
of  the  governor  and  provincial  council  held  for  the  purpose 
of  taking  into  consideration  his  lordship's  instructions  and 
commands  to  send  to  the  Dutch,  in  Delaware  Bay  (I  quote 
from  the  minutes  of  the  council)  seated  within  his  lord- 
ship's province,  to  command  them  to  be  gone,  "it  is  ordered 
that  Colonel  Nathaniel  Utie  do  make  his  repair  to  the  pre- 
tended governor  of  a  people  seated  in  Dealware  Bay  within 
his  Lordship's  province,  and  that  he  do  give  them  to  under- 
stand that  they  are  seated  within  his  Lordship's  province 
without  notice  given  to  his  Lordship's  lieutenant  here,  and 
require  them  to  depart  the  province."  This  was  followed 
in  a  distinct  paragraph  by  an  additional  instruction  of  a 
private  nature,  and  which  was  evidently  intended  for  the 
eye  of  the  commissioner  only,  but  which  the  gallant  Col- 
onel, the  Harry  Hotspur  of  his  lordship's  cavaliers  and 
provincial  council,  either  forgot,  or  did  not  deem  it  neces- 
sary, to  detach  from  his  commission  and  the  preceding 
instructions  embodied  in  it,  when  he  came  to  lay  his 
credentials  before  the  pretended  governor  and  council 
of  New  Amstel,  assembled  in  due  form  and  in  grave  and 
solemn  state  to  receive  him  as  the  accredited  envoy,  not 
of  his  Majesty,  the  King  of  Great  Britain,  but  of  a  grand 
dignitary  second  only  to  him,  I  have  no  doubt,  in  his 
estimation,  his  noble  lordship  of  the  Province  of  Mary- 
land. It  was  literally  as  follows:  That  in  case  he  finds  an 
opportunity,  he  insinuate  into  the  people  there  seated,  that 
in  case  they  make  their  application  to  his  lordship's  gov- 
ernor here,  they  shall  find  good  conditions  according  to 
the  conditions  of  plantation  granted   to   all  comers  into 


46  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

this  province,  which  shall  be  made  good  to  them,  and  that 
they  shall  have  protection  in  their  lives,  liberty,  and  estates 
which  they  shall  bring  with  them.  And  which  clearly 
indicates  that  they  were  not  so  anxious  for  them  to  be 
gone,  after  all.  But  if  they  expected  this  delicate  and 
sinister  part  of  the  embassy  to  be  accomplished  by  gentle 
hints,  or  diplomatic  address,  finesse,  or  insinuation  merely, 
they  were  very  much  mistaken  in  their  man  when  they 
appointed  such  a  person  as  the  straightforward,  plain- 
speaking,  gallant  Colonel  Utie  to  execute  it.  A  communi- 
cation, however,  of  a  more  polite  and  courteous  tenor  had 
been  about  the  same  time  addressed  in  terms  to  the  com- 
mander of  the  people  on  Delaware  Bay  in  reply  to  the 
letter  I  have  before  mentioned  from  the  director-general  at 
New  Amstel,  to  the  following  effect: 

Sir, — I  received  a  letter  from  you  addressed  to  me  as  Lord 
Baltimore's  Governor  and  Lieutenant  of  the  Province  of 
Maryland,  wherein  you  suppose  yourself  to  be  the  governor 
of  a  people  seated  in  a  part  of  Delaware  Bay,  which  I  am 
very  well  informed  lieth  to  the  southward  of  the  degree  of 
forty,  and  can  therefore  by  no  means  own  or  acknowledge 
any  for  governor  there  but  myself,  who  am  by  his  Lord- 
ship appointed  lieutenant  of  the  whole  province  lying 
between  these  degrees,  38  and  40,  but  do  by  these  presents 
require  and  command  you  to  presently  depart  north  of  his 
Lordship's  province,  or  otherwise  desire  you  to  hold  me 
excused  if  I  use  my  utmost  endeavor  to  reduce  that  part 
of  his  Lordship's  province  unto  its  due  obedience  under 
him. 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  47 

Three  days  after  the  session  of  the  council  and  his 
appointment,  Colonel  Utie,  with  two  other  delegates  and  a 
servant,  mounted  on  horses,  made  their  imposing  entrance 
into  New  Amstel,  but,  as  if  to  assure  the  inhabitants  at  first 
sight  of  the  friendly  purpose  of  his  mission  and  his  desire  to 
propitiate  their  good  will  by  a  graceful  tender  of  the  olive 
branch  or  calumet  of  peace,  concord,  and  amity,  he  brought 
with  him  in  custody,  not  the  five  or  six  soldiers  who  had 
deserted  from  the  fort,  but  three  or  four  unfortunate  debtors 
to  the  City  Colony,  who  had  adsconded  from  New  Amstel 
into  the  province  to  escape  imprisonment  for  the  crime  of 
getting  in  debt  without  the  ability  to  get  out  of  it,  and  duly 
surrendered  them  to  the  proper  authorities.  In  return  for 
this  civility  and  chivalric  act  of  colonial  comity,  he  demanded 
an  audience  of  the  director-general  and  council  at  the 
earliest  practicable  moment,  for  his  business  was  urgent  and 
would  not  admit  of  delay,  which  was  promptly  granted;  and 
on  the  introduction  of  the  business  of  his  mission,  he  opened 
the  proceeding  by  laying  his  commission  and  instructions 
in  full  before  them,  which  relieved  their  apprehensions  very 
considerably,  particularly  the  private  portion  of  them;  but 
in  the  course  of  the  discussion,  which  was  conducted  in  very 
good  temper  on  their  part,  he  soon  lapsed  into  a  vehement 
and  violent  harangue,  in  which  he  added  a  good  deal  to  the 
imperative  force  and  emphasis  of  his  public  instructions, 
and  concluded  in  effect  by  demanding  an  immediate  com- 
pliance with  them,  and  with  a  threat  of  instant  war  as  the 
only  alternative  left  them.  They  replied  that  it  would  be 
necessary  for  them  to  consult  Governor  Stuyvesant  before 
answering  his  demand,  and  that  it  would  require  several 


48  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

weeks  for  that  purpose,  whereupon  their  meeting  was  ad- 
journed for  three  weeks;  and  yet  the  colonel,  notwith- 
standing his  haste  for  an  answer  and  to  return  to  the  province 
as  speedily  as  possible  on  his  arrival,  remained  a  minister 
resident  for  the  whole  of  that  time  in  New  Amstel,  and  did 
faithful  service  in  the  mean  while  among  its  landholders 
by  insinuating  in  a  very  free  and  open  manner  how  much 
better  it  would  be  for  all  of  them  to  repudiate  the  claim 
of  the  Dutch  and  accept  Lord  Baltimore's  conditions;  and 
there  were  not  a  few  fence-men  in  the  place  and  vicinity 
who  were  half  inclined  to  agree  with  him  on  that  question, 
and  were  always  willing  to  hear  him  discourse,  either  in 
public  or  private,  on  that  interesting  subject.  This  gave 
much  uneasiness  as  well  as  offence  to  the  constituted 
authorities  of  the  town,  but  no  one  was  so  much  outraged 
by  it  as  Stuy vesant  was  when  he  learned  it,  for  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  denoimce  him  as  a  spy,  and  to  threaten  to  have 
him  arrested  as  such  and  sent  a  prisoner  to  Holland.  The 
name  of  Fort  Christina  and  the  settlement  around  it  had 
prior  to  his  time  been  changed  to  Altona,  and  meeting  with 
the  director-general  of  that  post  and  settlement  on  the 
streets  of  New  Amstel  during  the  time  I  have  just  spoken 
of,  the  colonel  notified  him  that  Lord  Baltimore  claimed 
Altona  also  as  within  his  province,  and  told  him  that  he 
must  consider  what  he  had  said  to  him  there  as  sufficient 
notice  of  that  fact.  On  the  day  appointed,  however,  the 
director-general  and  council,  with  the  consent  of  Stuy  ve- 
sant, again  met  the  colonel,  when  they  respectfully  informed 
him  that  they  rejected  the  claim  and  refused  to  accede  to 
the  demands  of  Lord  Baltimore,  and  then  delivered  to  him 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  49 

a  formal  protest  against  his  claims  and  pretensions  on  behalf 
of  the  New  Netherlands. 

Steps  were  immediately  taken  in  the  next  place  to  prepare 
to  defend  their  possessions  on  the  Delaware  against  the 
demands  and  menaces  made  in  the  name  of  his  lordship, 
and  pursuant  to  instructions  given  by  the  City  of  Amster- 
dam, all  of  the  country  lying  west  of  their  previous  pur- 
chase, from  Cape  Henlopen  to  the  mouth  of  the  river,  was 
bought  of  the  Indians,  and  a  new  fort  was  erected  and 
garrisoned  at  the  Hoorn  Kill.  A  considerable  body  of 
troops  were  also  ordered  from  New  Amsterdam,  and  sta- 
tioned at  New  Amstel.  But  whilst  these  preparations  were 
in  progress,  Stuyvesant  concluded  to  despatch  an  embassy 
to  his  excellency  his  lordship's  governor  of  the  Province 
of  Maryland,  with  full  powers  to  demand  instant  and  ample 
reparation  for  the  audacious  and  insolent  manner  in  which 
his  demand  for  the  surrender  of  their  possessions  had  been 
made  on  behalf  of  Lord  Baltimore,  and  for  the  great  loss 
and  injury  which  had  been  entailed  on  the  prosperity  of 
New  Amstel  by  the  consternation  which  it  had  produced 
there,  and  for  the  sinister  and  insidious  efforts  which  had 
been  made  there  to  frighten  and  seduce  the  inhabitants  from 
their  fidelity  to  their  true  and  lawful  government,  and  also 
to  compose,  compromise,  and  settle  all  matters  in  dispute 
and  controversy  on  such  terms  as  should  be  mutually  ac- 
ceptable to  the  parties  interested;  and  which  constituted 
in  fact  the  main  if  not  the  only  object  of  the  mission.  The 
commission  consisted  of  two  very  intelligent  and  respect- 
able gentlemen  of  New  Amsterdam,  Mr.  Augustus  Herman, 
a  native  of  Bohemia,  and  the  original  proprietor  of  the 


50  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

manor  of  that  name,  containing  eighteen  thousand  acres 
originally,  and  lying  partly  within  the  limits  of  this  State 
and  partly  within  those  of  Maryland,  and  Mr.  Resolved 
Waldron,  who,  after  reaching  New  Amstel,  proceeded  on 
their  journey  with  Indian  guides  arid  a  small  escort  of  sol- 
diers, threading  their  way  for  the  most  part  through  prime- 
val forests,  arrayed  in  all  the  rich  autumnal  tints  of  the 
month  of  October,  until  they  reached  a  small  affluent  of  the 
Chesapeake,  and  thence  by  canoe  navigation  past  the  resi- 
dence of  the  redoubtable  Colonel  Utie,  on  an  island  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Sassafras  River,  of  whom  they  had  heard 
such  terrible  things  at  New  Amstel  that  they  did  not  deem 
it  prudent  to  wait  on  him,  for  fear  of  his  arresting  their 
farther  progress  to  Kent  Island,  where  after  several  days 
of  land  and  water  travel,  they  procured  a  fine  sail-boat,  and 
proceeded  on  their  voyage  down  the  Chesapeake.  They 
were  received  very  courteously,  and  had  several  protracted 
and  interesting  interviews  and  official  sessions  with  Gover- 
nor Fendall,  Secretary  Calvert,  and  the  provincial  council, 
during  which  the  conflicting  claims  of  the  Dutch  and  of 
Lord  Baltimore  to  the  territory  in  dispute  were  ably  can- 
vassed and  discussed  by  their  respective  representatives; 
and  among  other  matters  urged  by  the  Dutch  commission- 
ers against  the  pretension  of  his  lordship,  the  misrepresen- 
tation contained  in  the  petition  on  which  his  grant  had  been 
made,  and  the  fact  that  the  Dutch  had  planted  colonies  and 
settlements  within  its  limits,  and  had  sealed  their  title  to  the 
territory  with  their  blood — alluding  to  the  massacre  of  their 
colony  on  the  Hoorn  Kill — prior  to  the  date  of  it,  were 
distinctly   presented   and   pressed   during   the   discussions. 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  51 

But  the  most  remarkable  thing  perhaps  developed  in  the 
course  of  them  was  the  final  proposition  submitted  by  the 
Dutch  commissioners.  Finding  there  was  no  other  pros- 
pect of  accommodating  their  differences,  they  at  length 
proposed  to  divide  the  peninsula  by  a  conventional  line 
running  north  and  south  through  the  middle  of  it,  even 
designating  on  the  map  prominent  points  in  the  location 
of  it,  and  so  near  to  where  our  present  coterminous  boun- 
dary is  established,  as  to  leave  no  doubt  that  early 
proposition  in  1659  became  the  original  of  the  idea  and 
conception  of  the  conventional  division  afterwards  pro- 
pounded to  the  succeeding  Lord  Baltimore  by  William 
Penn.  This  proposition  was  rejected,  however,  and  the 
deliberations  closed,  and  their  mission  terminated  without 
any  practical  results.  No  further  negotiations  were  insti- 
tuted between  them  on  the  subject,  nor  were  any  further 
demands  made  by  either  upon  the  other  afterwards;  before 
the  close  of  the  year,  however,  the  governor  of  the  prov- 
ince ordered  a  survey  to  be  made  of  lands  within  six  or 
eight  miles  of  New  Amstel,  and  allotted  and  granted  them 
to  inhabitants  of  the  province;  but  none  of  them  ever  at- 
tempted to  take  possession  of  them,  and  the  effort  would 
have  been  wholly  abortive  if  they  had,  because  the  Dutch 
were  on  the  alert  for  it,  and  had  instructions  from  Stuyve- 
sant  to  repel  it  by  force  of  arms,  if  necessary,  as  an  unlaw- 
ful invasion  of  their  possessions. 

In  the  following  year  Lord  Baltimore  made  his  next  effort 
to  acquire  by  purchase  the  lands  claimed  by  him  through 
his  agent  in  the  City  of  Amsterdam,  and  by  a  direct  appli- 
cation to  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  to  surrender  to 


'fZ  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTOHY  OF  THE 

liim  the  settlements  of  Altona  and  New  Amstel  and  their 
respective  neighborhoods,  upon  condition  of  his  reimbursing 
the  company  all  expenses  incurred  on  account  of  them, 
which  offer  the  company  not  only  peremptorily  refused,  but 
took  occasion  in  their  reply  to  his  communication,  which 
asserted  his  claim  to  them  under  his  patent  and  as  within 
the  degrees  of  his  grant,  to  affirm  their  right  and  title  to 
them  by  possession  under  the  grant  of  the  State-General 
for  many  years  without  claim  or  molestation  from  him  or 
any  other  person,  and  to  admonish  him  that  they  were  re- 
solved to  retain  and  defend  them  to  the  utmost  extremity, 
in  case  he  persisted  in  his  pretension  and  should  resort  to 
forcible  means  to  obtain  possession  of  them.  They  also 
soon  afterwards  appealed  to  the  State-General  to  represent 
through  their  minister  at  London  to  the  ministry  of  Eng- 
land the  situation  of  their  affairs  with  Lord  Baltimore  in 
relation  to  the  matter,  and  to  request  that  the  British  sover- 
eign would  require  his  lordship  to  desist  from  any  encroach- 
icent  upon  them  until  a  boundary  could  be  established 
between  his  Province  of  Maryland  and  their  possessions  on 
the  South  River,  and  which  was  in  due  time  attended  to  by 
the  State-General  as  requested;  and  that  it  was  also  duly 
brought  to  the  attention  of  the  British  sovereign  is,  I  think, 
to  be  reasonably  inferred  from  the  fact  that  at  a  session  of 
the  governor  and  council  of  the  province  held  eight  months 
afterwards,  in  May,  1661,  they  adopted  a  resolution  to  the 
following  effect:  that  inasmuch  as  it  was  doubtful  whether 
the  settlement  of  New  Amstel  was  below  the  fortieth  degree 
of  north  latitude,  and  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  was 
determined  to  maintain  their  possessions  on  the  Delaware 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  53 

by  force,  and  there  was  no  hope  of  any  aid  from  the  other 
Enghsh  colonies  in  the  attempt,  no  further  efforts  should  be 
made  to  reduce  them  to  obedience  to  the  authority  and 
jurisdiction  of  the  province,  until  the  will  of  his  lordship 
should  be  known  in  regard  to  the  matter;  and  that  some 
effort  should  be  made  in  the  mean  while  to  ascertain  whether 
it  was  within  the  boundaries  of  his  grant. 

As  to  the  events  which  occurred  between  the  date  last 
mentioned  and  the  month  of  August,  166*2,  which  we  have 
on  the  authority  of  some  of  the  historians  of  our  sister 
State,  such  as  the  advance  of  an  organized  military  force 
under  the  banners  of  Lord  Baltimore  against  the  fort  and 
settlement  at  the  Hoorn  Kill  during  that  time,  the  evacua- 
tion of  the  fort  and  the  retirement  of  the  Dutch  settlers 
from  the  place,  and  the  occupation  of  it  by  Maryland  set- 
tlers, and  the  collections  of  duties  there  by  his  authority,  I 
can  only  say  that  while  I  think  it  verj^  questionable,  or  their 
statements  much  exaggerated,  it  is  quite  certain  that  if  the 
Dutch  settlers  ever  retired  from  it,  or  the  fort  was  ever 
evacuated,  they  must  have  returned  very  soon  afterwards, 
and  that  if  the  Maryland  settlers  ever  possessed  themselves 
of  it,  they  must  have  abandoned  it  quite  as  speedily,  as  the 
well-authenticated  historical  events  which  followed  soon 
after  will  conclusively  shoAv.  By  them  all  this  is  recorded 
as  having  occurred  in  the  year  1661 ;  and  yet  this  date  brings 
us  down  to  an  era  of  good  feeling  pre-eminently  character- 
ized by  friendly  and  harmonious  relations  between  the  Dutch 
and  English  settlers  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the  peninsula, 
and  also  between  Lord  Baltimore  himself  and  the  principal 
officers  in  all  the  Dutch  settlements;  for  in  Auffust,  166'-2, 


54  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

liis  lordship  with  a  numerous  suite  made  a  friendly  visit  to 
the  director-general  of  the  City  Colony  at  New  Amstel,  and 
was  very  cordially  received  and  entertained  by  him,  and  two 
days  afterwards  extended  his  visit  to  the  director-general  at 
Altona,  where  he  was  received  and  entertained  in  the  same 
friendly  manner,  and  where  there  was  an  invitation  from 
Governor  Stuyvesant  awaiting  his  arrival,  to  extend  his 
visit  as  far  as  New  Amsterdam,  Avith  a  tender  of  a  proper 
escort  from  Altona,  but  which  his  engagements  compelled 
him  with  regret  to  defer  to  another  and  more  convenient 
opportunity.  I  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  mention 
another  important  fact  which  would  seem  to  be  equally 
incompatible  with  the  statements  which  I  have  referred  to, 
or  with  the  presumption  even,  that  any  such  hostilities  had 
occurred  between  them  in  1661,  or  that  his  lordship  was  in 
possession  of  the  fort  and  settlement  at  the  Hogrn  Kill  in 
that  year,  or  any  year  afterwards. 

On  the  12th  day  of  March,  1664  (O.  S.),  letters  patent 
were  issued  by  Charles  the  Second  of  England  to  his 
brother,  James,  Duke  of  York  and  Albany,  his  heirs  and 
assigns,  for  all  the  mainland  beginning  and  extending  from 
the  River  St.  Croix,  now  the  northern  boundary  of  the 
United  States,  where  they  adjoin  the  British  province  of 
New  Brunswick,  to  the  east  side  of  Delaware  Bay;  and 
among  the  rights,  powers,  and  privileges  conferred  upon 
him  by  it  were  those  of  royal  governor  of  it,  subject  to 
the  sovereignty  of  the  king  over  it.  Prior  to  that  date 
it  having  been  the  purpose  of  Charles  the  Second  for  a 
long  time  to  terminate  the  disputes  and  contentions  be- 
tween the  Dutch  and  English  settlers  in  America  by  estab- 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  55 

lishing  in  the  only  jiractical  method  left  to  him,  the  long- 
asserted  claim  of  the  Crown  of  England  to  all  the  terri- 
tory then  in  possession  of  the  Dutch  in  this  country,  he 
despatched  in  the  latter  part  of  the  month  of  May  following 
a  fleet,  consisting  of  two  frigates,  a  sloop-of-war,  and  a  trans- 
port with  three  hundred  troops,  under  the  command  of 
Colonel  Richard  Nichols,  with  whom  were  associated  as 
royal  commissioners  Sir  Robert  Carr,  George  Cartwright, 
and  Samuel  Maverick,  Esquires,  with  powers  and  instruc- 
tions to  visit  the  English  colonies  on  the  coast,  and  hear 
complaints  and  settle  the  peace  and  security  of  the  same, 
and  that  their  first  duty  would  be  the  reduction  of  the 
Dutch  in  or  near  Long  Island,  or  anywhere  within  the 
English  dominions,  to  entire  obedience  to  the  sovereignty 
of  the  British  Crown,  to  remedy  the  many  grievances  which 
the  neighboring  British  colonists  had  for  many  years 
suffered  at  their  hands.  In  the  mean  time,  before  the 
expedition  had  reached  its  destination,  on  the  25th  day  of 
June,  1664,  the  Duke  of  York  sold  and  conveyed  to  Lord 
Berkeley  and  Sir  George  Carteret  that  portion  of  the  lands 
granted  to  him  Ij'ing  between  the  Hudson  River  and  the 
Delaware  Bay,  and  now  constituting  the  State  of  New  Jer- 
sey; and  which  was  then  named  New  Jersey  in  compliment 
to  Sir  George  Carteret,  who  had  been  governor  of  the  island 
of  Jersey,  and  had  firmly  held  it  for  Charles  the  First  during 
the  rebellion  and  his  war  and  conflict  with  Parliamen- 
tary forces,  and  whose  devotion  to  his  cause  was  in  part  the 
consideration  for  the  sale  to  them. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  trace  in  detail  the  progress  and 
movements  of  the  English  fleet  and  expedition  in  the  work 


56  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

assigned  them.  It  Is  sufficient  to  state  that  by  the  9th  of 
September  following  the  fleet  had  appeared  before  New 
Amsterdam,  the  capital  and  principal  settlement  of  the  New 
Netherlands,  and  Governor  Stuyvesant  had  submitted  to 
the  demands  of  Colonel  Nichols  without  forcible  resistance 
or  firing  a  gun,  and  had  surrendered  to  the  English  all  of 
the  Dutch  possessions  over  which  he  had  authority  and 
command  at  that  time,  and  England  was  now  in  full  pos- 
session and  control  of  them.  A  short  time  prior  to  this 
event,  however,  the  residue  of  all  the  Dutch  and  formerly 
Swedish  settlements  on  the  western  side  of  the  Delaware, 
above  the  Christina,  including  Altona,  had  also  been 
sold  and  conveyed  by  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  to 
the  City  of  Amsterdam,  and  had  been  incorporated  in  the 
City  Colony,  and  was  now  solely  subject  to  its  government 
and  authority.  That  fact  had  been  made  known  to  Colonel 
Nichols  and  the  commissioners,  either  before  or  upon  the 
surrender  of  Stuyvesant,  and  as  their  instructions  were  to 
reduce  all  the  Dutch  possessions  on  our  coast  to  obedience, 
their  next  duty  was  to  proceed  in  like  manner  against  their 
settlements  on  our  river.  They  had  left  England  with 
ample  instructions  for  every  contingency  that  might  arise, 
and  for  this  occasion  most  especiall3^  Accordingly,  Sir 
Robert  Carr  was  directed  by  Colonel  Nichols  and  the  other 
commissioners  to  proceed  with  one  of  the  frigates,  the  sloop- 
of-war,  and  transport  of  the  fleet,  and  the  troops  not  required 
to  hold  the  fort  and  community  at  New  Amsterdam  in 
proper  subjection,  against  the  fort  and  the  town  of  New 
Amstel,  on  the  Delaware,  as  then  the  principal  settlement 
upon  it;  and  for  that  purpose  a  commission  was  duly  issued 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  57 

to  him  by  them  with  written  instructions,  among  which  was 
the  following,  and  which  was  evidently  dictated  at  the  War 
Office  in  London,  bj'  the  command  of  the  king,  before  the 
departure  of  the  expedition  from  England:  "If  Sir  Robert 
finds  he  cannot  reduce  the  place  by  force,  nor  upon  the  con- 
ditions before  mentioned,  he  may  add  such  as  he  may  deem 
necessary;  but  if  both  fail,  he  is,  by  a  messenger  to  the 
Governor  of  Maryland,  to  ask  aid,  and  from  all  other  Eng- 
lish who  live  near  the  Dutch  plantations.  He  is  to  declare 
to  Lord  Baltimore's  son  and  all  the  English  concerned  in 
Maryland,  that  this  great  expense  to  His  Majesty  in  ships 
and  soldiers  has  been  incurred  solely  for  the  purpose  of 
reducing  foreigners  in  these  parts  to  His  Majesty's  obedi- 
ence; but  that  being  reduced  at  His  Majesty's  expense,  he 
is  commanded  to  hold  possession  for  His  Majesty's  own 
behoof  and  right,  and  that  he  is  willing  to  unite  with  the 
Governor  of  Maryland  in  His  Majesty's  interest  on  all  oc- 
casions; and  if  my  Lord  Baltimore  doth  pretend  right 
thereto  by  his  patent  (which  is  a  doubtful  case),  you  are 
to  say  that  yoVi  only  keep  possession  till  His  Majesty  is 
informed  and  otherwise  satisfied." 

Fortunately,  Sir  Robert  had  no  occasion  to  call  on  the 
Governor  of  Maryland  for  any  assistance  on  his  arrival 
before  New  Amstel.  But  suppose  it  had  been  otherwise, 
with  such  a  wet  blanket  as  that  instruction  and  admonition 
to  his  lordship  contained  thrown  on  the  shoulders  of  every 
cavalier  and  soldier  of  Maryland  called  on  to  aid  in  such 
an  exigency  and  such  a  struggle,  with  how  much  ardor  or 
spirit  would  they  have  engaged  in  it?  Under  the  instruc- 
tions  referred    to.   Sir  Robert   Carr  sailed   with   his   fleet 


58  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

and  troops  for  the  Delaware,  and,  after  a  tedious  voyage  in 
ascending  the  river,  passed  the  fort  at  New  Amstel  without 
being  fired  upon,  and  anchored  above  it.  He  then  made  a 
formal  demand  in  the  name  of  his  Majesty,  the  King  of 
England  for  the  surrender  of  the  fort,  the  town,  and  all  the 
possessions  of  the  City  Colony  on  the  bay  and  river.  After 
one  day  of  parley  and  delay,  the  authorities  and  citizens  of 
the  town  were  generally  disposed  to  submit  and  to  sur- 
render the  place  without  further  hesitation,  but  a  minority  of 
them,  at  the  head  of  whom  firmly  stood  the  director-general 
of  the  colony,  D'Hinoyossa,  were  strenuously  opposed  to 
it,  and  would  come  to  no  terms,  and  as  Sir  R.obert  was  in 
hopes  that  they  also  would  at  length  see  the  necessity 
and  propriety  of  it,  the  effort  to  procure  it  without  firing 
either  upon  the  fort  or  the  town  was  protracted  for  three 
days,  when  the  town  authorities  and  citizens  determined  to 
capitulate  and  surrender  it  without  the  consent  and  against 
the  will  of  the  director-general,  on  which  he  retired  with 
his  officers  into  the  fort,  resolved  to  hold  it,  at  least,  to  the 
last  extermity.  The  next  morning  the  frigate  and  sloop-of- 
war  were  ordered  to  drop  down  below  the  fort,  but  within 
musket-range  of  it,  and  each  to  discharge  two  broadsides 
into  it,  and  the  troops  were  also  landed  for  the  purpose  of 
storming  it  as  soon  as  those  discharges  were  made.  The 
plan  of  attack  was  promptly  executed  by  both  the  ships  and 
the  soldiers,  and  in  a  moment  the  fort  was  theirs,  with  a 
loss  to  the  Dutch  of  four  killed  and  ten  wounded  out  of  a 
garrison  of  between  thirty  and  forty  men.  It  was  an  act  of 
consummate  courage  and  heroic  resolution  on  the  part  of 
the  director-general  to  withstand  such  an  attack,  but  it  was 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  59 

at  the  same  time  but  little  better  than  an  act  of  madness,  for 
the  fort  was  utterly  untenable,  and  could  afford  no  security 
or  protection  against  such  a  combined  assault  both  by  land 
and  water.  The  terms  of  capitulation,  though  liberal  to 
all  the  inhabitants  submitting  to  them,  constituted  a  total 
surrender  of  the  Dutch  possessions  on  the  Delaware  to 
the  sovereignty  of  the  British  Crown.  Officers  and  troops 
were  immediately  despatched  to  the  Hoorn  Kill  to  enforce 
the  surrender  and  take  possession  of  the  fort  and  settlement 
there;  and  there  were  strong  complaints  on  the  part  of  the 
inhabitants  both  there  and  at  New  Amstel  of  the  bad 
treatment  and  spoliations  of  private  property  to  which  they 
were  subjected  by  the  British  troops  after  the  surrender. 
The  name  of  New  Amsterdam  was  now  changed  to  NeV 
York,  and  of  New  Amstel  to  New  Castle,  by  the  English 
conquerors;  the  former  of  which  contained  at  that  time 
a  population  of  about  fifteen  hundred,  while  all  the  settlements 
within  the  limits  of  our  State  did  not  probably  comprise  a 
population  of  more  than  two  thousand.  The  failure  of  the 
two  preceding  races  to  make  any  greater  progress  in  the 
settlement  and  population  of  this  fine  and  favored  region  in 
America  during  the  time  they  had  been  in  the  possession 
of  it,  is  only  the  more  remarkable  when  we  reflect  that 
each  embarked  in  the  grand  enterprise  with  great  spirit  and 
ardor  at  an  unusually  brilliant  and  auspicious  epoch  in  the 
history  of  both  countries  apparently  for  such  an  under- 
taking, and  when  the  star  of  empire  shone  in  the  ascendent 
with  the  brightest  effulgence  over  each  of  them,  whilst 
the  sky  of  Sweden  was  yet  radiant  with  the  lustre  of  the 
achievements    and    conquests    of    Gustavus    Adolphus    in 


60  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Russia,  Prussia,  and  on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic,  and  that 
of  the  Netherlands  was  still  in  a  blaze  with  the  glory  of 
the  still  grander  achievement  of  their  entire  independence 
of  the  Crown  of  Spain,  and  the  magnificent  conquests  of 
their  meteor  flag  both  in  Oriental  and  in  Western  seas; 
and  yet,  s.trange  to  say,  not  even  the  faintest  and  feeblest 
reflection  of  that  splendor  and  glory  on  either  hand  ever 
reached  to  their  dominions  on  the  shores  of  the  Hudson 
or  the  Delaware.  Full  fifty  years  had  now  elapsed  since 
the  Dutch  had  commenced  the  plantation  of  their  posses- 
sions in  this  country,  and  yet  in  one  hundred  years  after 
that  time  Delaware  alone  must  have  contained  a  civilized 
population  of  nearly  fifty  thousand,  and  the  four  States 
of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  Delaware  a 
similar  population  of  nearly  one  million;  and  now,  after 
the  lapse  of  a  little  more  than  two  hundred  years  from  that 
date,  the  population  of  the  same  cannot  be  far  short  of  ten 
millions.  It  is  therefore  manifest  that  the  English  conquest 
was  no  calamity,  but  a  great  blessing  in  the  first  instance  to 
the  region  conquered,  and  afterwards  to  our  whole  country. 
For  it  was  the  fortune  of  these  four  States  to  bear  the  brunt 
of  the  American  Revolution,  as  the  regions  of  the  Hudson 
and  the  Delaware  became  the  theatre  of  its  greatest  and 
grandest  conflicts,  and  here,  in  turn,  our  national  independ- 
ence was  afterwards  substantially  conquered;  and  from  that 
time  they  both  became  illustrious  in  the  history  of  the 
country,  and  the  Delaware  particularly  memorable  as  the 
historic  river  of  the  Revolution. 

In  the  following  year  was  was  formally  proclaimed  by 
England  against  the  Netherlands,  and  continued  until  1668, 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  Gl 

without  anj'^  change  in  the  relations  which  the  province  of 
the  Duke  of  York  now  sustained  to  England,  and  into 
which  our  territory,  with  the  sanction  of  his  Majesty 
Charles  the  Second,  had  been  duly  incorporated  immediately 
after  its  conquest,  by  his  royal  highness  the  duke  under 
his  letters  patent,  which  did  not  include  it,  and  by  which  he 
thus  constituted  his  whole  territory  one  province  and  one 
provincial  government  under  them,  making  New  York  the 
central  seat  of  it,  and  the  official  residence  of  his  lieutenant- 
governor  for  the  time  being.  But  war  again  occurred  be- 
tween the  two  countries  in  1672,  during  which  the  Nether- 
lands temporarily  recovered  the  possession  of  the  whole 
region,  ours  as  well  as  the  residue  of  it,  and  re-established 
their  government  over  it ;  on  the  conclusion  of  it,  however,  in 
1674,  by  the  terms  of  the  treaty  it  was  restored  to  England, 
and  which  had  the  effect  at  last  to  confirm  the  title  of  that 
country  to  it  by  the  peaceful  and  solemn  compact  of  the 
two  countries;  and  inasmuch  as  the  intervening  recapture 
of  it  flagrante  bello  was  supposed  to  have  had  the  effect  in 
law  to  abrogate  and  annul  the  estate  and  powers  granted 
and  delegated  immediately  from  the  king  to  the  Duke  of 
York  in  the  province,  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  revive 
and  confirm  the  grant  liy  a  renewal  of  the  letters  patent 
after  the  close  of  the  war  and  the  ratification  of  the  treaty 
of  peace  restoring  it  to  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain,  and 
which  was  accordinly  done  on  the  29th  day  of  June, 
1674. 

On  the  14th  day  of  June,  1680,  William  Penn  presented 
to  his  Majesty  Charles  the  Second,  with  whom  he  was  per- 
sonally well  acquainted,  as  he  was  also  with  his  brother, 


62  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

the  Duke  of  York,  a  petition  to  grant  to  him  in  Heu  of  a 
claim  on  the  British  government,  which  he  had  inherited 
from  his  father  (late  an  admiral  in  the  British  navy),  for 
money  advanced  and  service  rendered,  to  the  amount  of 
sixteen  thousand  pounds,  a  tract  of  country  in  America,  lying 
north  of  Maryland,  bounded  on  the  east  by  the  Delaware 
River,  on  the  west  limited  as  Maryland,  and  to  extend 
northward  as  far  as  plantable.  There  then  existed  in  the 
privy  council  of  the  king  a  body  of  councillors  of  the 
Crown  well  known  to  the  laws  and  constitution  of  the 
realm,  a  duly  constituted  committee,  named  in  polite  and 
strictly  technical  terms  The  Lords  of  the  Committee  of 
His  Majesty's  most  honorably  Privy  Council  for  the  Affairs 
of  Trade  and  Plantation,  of  which  Lord  Chief  Justice  North 
of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  was  ex  officio  a  member, 
among  many  other  eminent  noblemen  and  gentlemen.  This 
committee  had,  among  other  powers  conferred  upon  it, 
special  cognizance  of  disputes  in  relation  to  plantations 
and  colonial  and  provincial  boundaries  arising  in  the  distant 
colonial  possessions  of  the  Crown,  and  beyond  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  courts  of  law  of  the  kingdom,  notwithstanding 
they  might  involve  questions  of  right  and  title  to  extensive 
possessions  in  such  distant  colonies;  and  whenever  a  ques- 
tion arose  between  two  provinces  of  America,  or  elsewhere 
in  their  remote  possessions,  concerning  the  extent  of  their 
charters,  mutual  limits,  or  matters  of  that  kind,  the  juris- 
diction of  the  committee  was  original.  It  had,  however, 
no  power  to  enter  judgment  or  decree  as  a  court  of  law  or 
equity,  or  to  enforce  its  decision  against  either  party,  for  its 
province  simply  was  to  investigate  such  cases  and  to  advise 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  63 

the  king  of  their  conclusions  in  regard  to  them.  To  that 
committee,  by  the  direction  of  the  king,  Mr.  Penn's  petition 
was  promptly  referred.  I  am  here  happy  to  have  the  oppor- 
tunity to  acknowledge  the  obligation  we  owe  to  the  distin- 
guished commissioners  appointed  a  few  sessions  since  on 
behalf  of  this  State  to  consider,  in  conjunction  with  a  like 
body  of  commissioners  appointed  on  behalf  of  the  State 
of  New  Jersey,  what  was  then  known  as  the  fishery  ques- 
tion between  the  two  States,  and  to  report  to  the  Legis- 
lature thereon,  for  the  thorough  and  patient  research  and 
investigation  made  by  them  in  the  matter,  and  which 
brought  to  our  knowledge,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history 
of  the  questions  we  now  have  under  consideration,  the  full 
and  interesting  details  of  the  proceedings  before  that  dis- 
tinguished committee  of  the  privy  council  on  the  petition 
so  referred  to  it.  I  shall  repeat  the  substance  of  them  only. 
On  the  l^th  of  June,  1680,  the  Committee  in  session  in 
the  council  chamber,  the  petition  of  William  Penn  was 
read,  praying  in  consideration  of  debts  due  to  him,  or  his 
father,  from  the  Crown,  to  grant  him  letters  patent  for  a  tract 
of  land  in  America,  north  of  Maryland,  bounded  on  the  east 
by  the  Delaware  River,  on  the  west  limited  as  Maryland, 
and  northward  to  extend  as  far  as  plantable;  whereupon 
Mr.  Penn  was  called  in,  and  having  been  asked  what  extent 
he  would  be  contented  with  northerly,  declared  he  would 
be  satisfied  with  three  degrees  to  the  northward,  and  was 
willing,  in  lieu  of  such  a  grant,  to  remit  his  debt  due  to 
him  from  His  Majesty,  or  some  part  of  it,  and  to  stay  for 
the  remainder  until  His  Majesty  should  be  in  a  better  con- 
dition to  satisfv  it.     And  after  consideration  of  the  whole 


64  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

matter  it  was  ordered  that  copies  of  his  petition  be  sent  to 
Sir  John  Werden  on  behalf  of  His  Royal  Highness  (the 
counsel  and  representative  of  the  Duke  of  York),  and  to 
the  agents  of  Lord  Baltimore,  to  the  end  that  they  might 
report  to  the  Committee  how  far  the  pretensions  of  Mr. 
Penn  might  consist  with  the  boundaries  of  Maryland,  or 
the  Duke's  property  of  New  York,  and  his  possessions  in 
those  parts.  Whitehall,  June  25,  1680.  Committee  again  in 
session.  The  petition  of  Mr.  Penn  was  again  read  concern- 
ing a  tract  of  land  to  be  granted  to  him  in  America,  to- 
gether with  a  letter  from  Sir  John  Werden,  and  another 
from  Lord  Baltimore':,  agents  touching  the  same.  And  Mr. 
Penn  having  been  afterwards  called  in,  was  told  that  it 
appearing  by  Sir  John  Werden's  letter  that  part  of  the  ter- 
ritory desired  by  him  was  already  possessed  by  the  Duke 
of  York,  he  should  apply  himself  to  His  Royal  Highness 
for  adjusting  their  respective  pretensions;  and  Mr.  Penn 
being  also  acquainted  with  the  matter  of  the  letter  from 
Lord  Baltimore's  agents,  he  does  agree  that  Susquehanna 
Fort  shall  be  the  bounds  of  Lord  Baltimore's  province;  and 
as  to  the  furnishing  of  arms  and  ammunition  to  the  In- 
dians, Mr.  Penn  declares  himself  ready  to  submit  to  any 
restraint  their  Lordships  shall  propose.  Whitehall,  Nov. 
4,  1680.  Committee  again  in  session.  The  petition  of 
Mr.  Penn  was  read,  desiring  that  a  day  might  be  appointed 
for  preparing  a  grant  unto  him  of  proprietary  in  a  tract  of 
land  in  America  upon  Delaware  River;  and  their  Lord- 
ships appoint  this  business  for  Thursday  next.  Whitehall, 
Thursday,  Nov.  11,  1680.  Committee  again  in  session. 
Mr.   Attorney-General  presents   the   Committee   with   his 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  63 

observations  on  the  draft  of  Mr.  Penn's  patent.  AVhite- 
hall,  Dec.  16,  1680.  Committee  again  in  session.  Mr. 
Penn  is  called  in  concerning  the  patent  desired  by  him, 
and  upon  reading  the  letters  from  Sir  John  Werden  touch- 
ing the  boundaries  wherein  His  Royal  Highness  may  be 
concerned,  their  Lordships  think  it  best  for  the  settlement 
thereof  that  Sir  John  Werden  be  desired  to  attend  on 
Saturday  next  in  the  afternoon,  at  which  time  the  agent 
of  Lord  Baltimore  is  likewise  ordered  to  give  his  attend- 
ance as  to  what  concerns  his  Lordship's  property  of  Mary- 
land. Whitehall,  Saturday,  Jan.  15,  1681.  Committee 
again  in  session.  The  boundaries  of  Mr.  Penn's  patent, 
settled  by  Lord  Chief  Justice  North  with  the  alterations 
of  Sir  John  Werden,  were  read  and  approved,  and  their 
Ldrdships  appoint  Wednesday  next,  at  nine  in  the  morning, 
to  review  the  whole  patent.  Whitehall,  Saturday,  Jan.  2'2, 
1681.  Committee  again  in  session.  Upon  reading  the 
draft  of  a  patent  for  Mr.  Penn  concerning  his  absolute 
proprietary  of  a  tract  of  land  in  America,  northerly  of 
Maryland,  the  Lords  of  the  Committee  desire  my  Lord 
Chief  Justice  North  to  take  said  patent  into  his  considera- 
tion, and  to  provide  by  fit  clauses  therein  that  all  acts  of 
sovereignty  as  to  peace  and  war  be  reserved  to  the  King; 
and  that  all  acts  of  Parliament  concerning  trade  and  navi- 
gation and  His  Majesty's  customs  be  duly  observed;  and 
in  general  that  the  patent  be  so  drawn  that  it  may  consist 
with  the  King's  interest  and  service,  and  give  sufficient 
encouragement  to  planters  to  settle  under  it.  A  paper 
being  also  read,  wherein  my  Lord  Bishop  of  London 
desires  that  Mr.  Penn  be  obliged  by  his  patent  to  admit 


6f)  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

a  chaplain  of  his  Lordship's  appointment,  upon  the  request 
of  any  number  of  planters;  the  same  is  also  referred  to 
my  Lord  Chief  Justice  North.  Whitehall,  Thursday,  Feb. 
24,  1681.  Committee  again  in  session.  A  draft  of  a  patent 
for  Mr.  Penn  is  read,  and  there  being  a  blank  left  for  the 
name  of  the  tract  or  province,  their  Lordships  agree  to 
leave  the  nomination  of  it  to  the  King. 

The  communications  by  letter  which  in  the  mean  while  en- 
sued between  the  committee  through  its  secretary,  William 
Blaithwaite,  Esq.,  and  the  representative  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  and  the  agents  of  Lord  Baltimore,  in  relation  to  the 
matter,  will  furnish  further  information  on  the  subject  which 
the  journal  of  its  sesions  merely,  of  course,  could  not 
supply,  and  will  clearly  explain  and  show  how  and  why 
the  northern  boundary  of  our  State  is  in  the  form  of  an  arc 
of  a  circle,  and  which  was  originally  fixed,  pending  these 
proceedings,  by  agreement  between  the  Duke  of  York  and 
William  Penn,  as  his  southern  limit  of  his  Province  of 
Pennsylvania,  where  it  was  to  abut  upon  the  northern 
boundary  of  what  his  royal  highness  then  called  his 
Delaware,  or  New  Castle  colony.  The  first  is  a  letter  in 
reply  to  his  service  of  a  copy  of  the  petition  of  Mr.  Penn 
j)ursuant  to  the  order  of  the  committee  at  its  first  session, 
from  Sir  John  Werden  on  behalf  of  the  Duke  of  York. 

St,  James,  June  23,  1680. 

For  William  Blaythwaite,  Esq.,  Secretary  of  the  Right 
Honorable  the  Lords  Commissioners  for  Trade  and 
Plantations  at  Whitehall. 

Sir, — I  had  answered  your  letter  of  the  14th  sooner,  but 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  67 

my  going  to  Windsor  just  when  I  received  it  hindered  me 
then,  and  also  made  me  think  it  proper  to  acquaint  the 
Duke  with  the  contents  of  it  first.  What  I  have  now  to 
say  is,  that  by  all  which  I  can  observe  of  the  boundaries 
mentioned  in  Mr.  Penn's  petition,  they  agree  well  enough 
with  that  colony  or  plantation  which  hath  been  hitherto 
(ever  since  the  conquest  of  New  York  by  Colonel  Nichols) 
held  as  an  appendix  and  part  of  the  government  of  New 
York  by  name  of  Delaware  Colony,  or  more  particularly 
New  Castle  Colony,  that  being  the  name  of  a  principal  place 
in  it;  the  whole  being  promiscuously  planted  by  Swedes, 
Finlanders,  Dutch  and  English,  all  which  hath  been  actually 
under  the  government  of  His  Royal  Highness'  Lieutenant 
at  New  York  hitherto;  but  what  are  its  proper  boundaries 
(those  of  Latitude  and  Longitude  being  so  very  little 
known,  or  so  ill  observed,  as  experience  tells  us,  in  all  the 
West  Indies)  I  am  not  able  to  say;  if  this  be  what  Mr.  Penn 
would  have,  I  presume  the  Right  Honorable  the  Lords  of 
the  Committee  for  Trade  and  Plantations  will  not  encourage 
his  pretensions  to  it  by  reason  of  what  is  mentioned,  which 
plainly  show  the  Duke's  right  preferable  to  all  others 
(under  his  majesty's  good  liking),  though  it  should  not 
prove  to  be  strictly  wnthin  the  Duke's  Patent;  but  if  it  be 
any  other  parcel  of  land  unimproved  in  those  parts,  which 
is  without  all  other  patents,  and  not  interfering  with  the 
possessions  of  His  Majesty's  subjects,  already  settled  there, 
I  humbly  submit  to  their  Lordships  how  far  they  may 
think  convenient  (under  fitting  restrictions  and  qualifica- 
tions to  tie  up  the  government  of  such  new  colonies  as 
near  as  may  be  to  the  laws  of  England)  to  recommend  the 


68  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

petitioner's  request  to  His  Majesty;  thus  I  think  I  have,  as 
far  as  I  am  able  at  present,  fully  answered  your  letter  upon 
this  subject;  so  I  remain. 

Sir,  your  most  affectionate  Friend  and  Servant, 

Jo.  Werden. 

On  the  same  day  he  received  from  the  agents  of  Lord 
Baltimore  the  following  reply: 

Sir, — In  answer  to  yours  in  reference  to  Mr.  Penn's 
petition,  some  things  are  thought  proper  to  be  offered 
in  respect  to  the  particular  concern  of  my  Lord  Balti- 
more, and  something  in  reference  to  the  public  on  his 
Lordship's  behalf.  It  is  desired  that  if  the  grant  pass 
unto  Mr.  Penn  of  the  lands  petitioned  for  in  America, 
that  it  may  be  expressed  to  be  land  that  shall  lie  north 
of  Susquehanna  Fort,  also  north  of  all  lands  in  a  direct 
1  lie  between  the  said  fort  and  Delaware  river;  and  also 
north  of  all  lands  upon  a  direct  line  westward  from  the 
said  fort;  for  that  fort  is  the  boundary  of  Maryland  north- 
ward. It  is  further  desired  that  there  may  be  contained 
general  words  of  restriction  as  to  any  interest  granted  to 
Lord  Baltimore,  and  saving  to  him  all  rights  granted;  it 
is  also  prayed  that  my  Lord  may  have  a  sight  of  the  grant 
before  it  pass.  On  the  public  account  it  is  offered  that 
some  due  caution  be  provided  that  no  arms,  powder,  shot, 
or  ammunition  be  sold  by  any  that  shall  settle  in  this  new 
plantation  to  the  Indians  or  natives;  for  hereby  a  common 
mischief  may  happen  unto  all  his  Majesty's  neighboring 
plantations. 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  69 

This,  with  our  thanks  on  my  Lord  Baltimore's  behalf  for 
your  care  of  him,  is  all  at  present  from. 

Sir,  your  humble  servants, 

Barnaby  Dunch,, 
Richard  Burk. 

On  the  16th  day  of  October,  1680,  a  second  letter  was 
received  from  Sir  John  Werden  on  behalf  of  the  Duke  of 
York,  as  follows: 

Sir, — You  heretofore  wrote  to  me  touching  Mr.  .William 
Penn's  petition  then  before  the  Right  Honorable  the  Lords 
Commissioners  for  Trade  and  Foreign  Plantations;  to  which 
I  answered  you  as  at  that  time  I  was  obliged  to;  since  then 
Mr,  Penn  hath  represented  to  the  Duke  his  case  and  circum- 
stances, in  relation  to  the  reason  he  hath  to  expect  favor 
from  his  Majesty  touching  that  request  of  his,  to  be  such 
as  that  his  Royal  Highness  commands  me  to  let  you  know, 
in  order  to  your  informing  their  Lordships  of  it,  that  he  is 
very  willing  that  Mr.  Penn's  request  may  meet  with  success; 
that  is,  that  he  may  have  a  grant  of  the  tract  of  land  which 
lies  on  the  north  of  New  Castle  Colony,  part  of  Delaware, 
and  on  the  west  side  of  Delaware  River,  beginning  about 
the  latitude  of  40  degrees,  and  extending  northwards  and 
westwards  as  far  as  his  majesty  pleaseth,  under  such  regu- 
lations as  their  Lordships  shall  think  fit. 

Sir,  your  very  humble  servant, 
Jo.  Werden. 

In  the  mean  while  a  draft  of  the  proposed  grant  had  been 


70  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

prepared  by  Mr.  Penn,  and  by  the  order  of  the  committee 
had  been  submitted  to  the  attorney-general,  that  if  upon 
consideration  of  the  powers  therein  proposed  he  should 
have  any  objection  to  it,  he  might  report  the  same  to  them. 
And  in  obedience  to  their  order  their  secretary  had  on  the 
ISth  day  of  November,  1680,  addressed  a  letter  to  Sir  John 
Werden,  apprising  him  also  of  that  fact,  and  that  they  had 
been  informed  that  a  copy  of  the  draft  had  been  laid  in  his 
hands,  and  that  if  he  had  nothing  more  to  offer  to  them  on 
the  subject,  they  proposed  to  take  their  final  resolution  in 
relation  to  the  patent  at  their  next  meeting,  and  stating  the 
time  of  it;  to  which  he  replied  on  the  20th  of  that  month 
as  follows: 

Sir, — At  two  of  the  clock  of  this  day  I  met  with  your 
letter  to  me  of  the  18th  instant,  and  a  copy  in  it  (which  I 
here  return  to  you)  of  some  part  of  Mr.  Penn's  patent  for 
land  in  America.  I  am  to  first  premise  to  you  that  in  cases 
of  this  nature  it  were  most  proper  to  have  the  advice  of 
council  learned  in  the  laws  for  settling  the  boundaries  of 
any  new  patent  which  may  be  liable  to  encroach  on  those 
of  another's  possession;  but  in  regard  I  remember  well  the 
Duke's  directions  expressed  in  a  former  letter  by  me  to  you 
by  his  Royal  Highness'  order,  dated  the  16th  of  October, 
1680,  I  shall  frankly  tell  you  my  thoughts  thereupon,  viz.: 
That  I  believe  the  description  by  longitude  (especially)  and 
of  latitude  are  very  uncertain,  and  so  also  is  it  under  what 
meridian  the  head  of  Delaware  river  lies,  which  I  do  believe 
hath  never  yet  been  observed  by  any  careful  artist.  But  it 
being  the  Duke's  intention  that  Mr.  Penn's  grant  be  bounded 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  Of  DELAWARE.  71 

on  the  east  side  by  the  Delaware  river,  and  that  his  sguth 
hmits  be  twenty  or  thirty  miles  beyond  New  Castle  (which 
colony  of  New  Castle  is  northwards  and  distinct  from  Mary- 
land, that  being  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Lord  Baltimore), 
which  extent  northwards  of  New  Castle  colony,  we  guess, 
may  reach  as  far  as  the  beginning  of  the  fortieth  degree  of 
latitude;  therefore,  if  Mr.  Penn's  patent  be  so  worded  as  to 
leave  New  Castle  twenty  or  thirty  miles  beyond,  free,  and 
to  be  bounded  on  the  east  by  Delaware  river,  I  think  this 
is  all  that  needs  as  to  the  Duke,  who  will  not  concern  him- 
self how  far  north  or  west  Mr.  Penn's  patent  takes  him. 
I  am,  Sir,  your  most  affectionate  Friend  and  Servant, 

Jo.  Werden. 

Three  days  afterwards,  that  is  to  say,  on  the  23d  of  Nov- 
ember, 1680,  he  wrote  again  to  Secretary  Blaythwaite,  as 
follows : 

Sir, — Mr.  Penn  having  often  fallen  into  discourse  with 
me  of  his  concerns  in  America  since  I  wrote  to  you  on 
Saturday,  I  have  told  him  the  substance  of  what  I  wrote, 
and  he  seems  to  fear  that  if  his  south  limits  be  rightly  set 
at  twenty  or  thirty  miles  north  from  New  Castle  Town,  he 
shall  have  so  little  of  the  river  left  as  very  much  to  prevent 
the  hopes  he  hath  of  improving  the  rest  within  his  patent; 
but,  on  the  other  side,  he  is  willing  that  twelve  English 
miles  north  of  New  Castle  be  his  boundary,  and  believes 
the  distance  will  fall  under  the  beginning  of  the  fortieth 
degree  of  latitude;  I  have  already  signified  to  you  all  I 
know  of  the  Duke's  mind  herein,   which   is   in  general  to 


72  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

keep-  some  convenient  distance  from  New  Castle  north- 
wards for  a  boundary  to  that  colony.  But  I  confess  I  do 
not  understand  why  it  is  precisely  necessary  to  insist  on 
just  such  a  number  of  miles,  more  or  less,  in  a  country  of 
which  we  know  so  little,  and  when  all  the  benefits  are  in- 
tended to  this  patentee  which  others  enjoy;  so  as  I  submit 
this  point  to  their  Lordship's  consideration,  and  do  not 
think  it  material  to  add  more  at  present,  from 

Your  very  affectionate  Friend  and  Servant, 

Jo.  Werden. 

The  agents  of  Lord  Baltimore,  as  well  as  Sir  John  Werden 
on  behalf  of  the  Duke  of  York,  were  again  duly  notified  to 
appear  before  the  committee,  on  the  18th  of  December, 
1680,  to  present  their  objections  to  the  draft  of  Mr.  Penn's 
patent,  if  any  they  had,  and  were  desired  not  to  fail  in 
their  attendance,  as  their  lordships  were  determined  to 
proceed  at  that  time  to  a  resolution  in  the  matter.  But 
neither  of  them  then  appeared,  or  made  further  answer. 

Assuming,  on  the  basis  of  this  last  letter,  that  the  Duke 
of  York  had  at  length  assented  to  the  fixation  of  the 
southern  line  of  Mr.  Penn's  patent  for  his  Province  of 
Pennsylvania  at  the  distance  of  twelve  English  miles  north 
from  the  town  of  Newcastle,  the  Lords  of  the  Committee 
for  the  Affairs  of  Trade  and  Plantations  requested  Lord 
Chief  Justice  North  to  draw  the  description  of  the  bound- 
aries to  be  inserted  in  it,  and  which  he  did  in  the  following 
terms : 

"As  the  same  is  bounded  on  the  east  by  Delaware  River 
from  the  twelve  miles  distance  northward  of  New  Castle 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  73 

Town,  beginning  of  the  fortieth  degree  of  northern  lati- 
tude unto  the  three  and  fortieth  degree  of  northern  lati- 
tude, if  the  said  river  doth  extend  so  far  northward;  but  if 
the  said  river  shall  not  extend  so  far  northward,  then  by 
the  said  river  so  far  as  it  doth  extend;  and  from  the  head 
of  the  said  river  the  eastern  bounds  are  to  be  determined 
by  a  meridian  line  to  be  drawn  from  the  head  of  the  said 
river  unto  the  said  three  and  fortieth  degree;  the  said  lands 
to  extend  westward  five  degrees  in  longitude,  to  be  com- 
puted from  the  said  eastern  bounds;  and  the  said  lands  are 
bounded  on  the  north  by  the  beginning  of  the  three  and 
fortieth  degree  of  northern  latitude,  and  on  a  circle  drawn 
at  twelve  miles  distance  from  New  Castle  northward  and 
westward,  unto  the  south  by  the  beginning  of  the  fortieth 
degree  of  northern  latitude;  another  by  a  straight  line  west- 
ward to  the  limit  of  longitude  above"  mentioned,  except- 
ing all  lands  within  twelve  miles  of  the  town  of  New- 
Castle  that  shall  happen  to  lie  within  the  said  bounds,  now 
in  the  possession  of  His  Royal  Highness,  or  his  tenants  or 
assigns." 

Their  final  report    to    the  king   in   the   matter   was   as 
follows : 

May  it  please  your  Majesty: 

In  obedience  to  your  Majesty's  order,  signified  to  us  by 
the  Earl  of  Sunderland  on  the  1st  of  June  last,  we  had 
prepared  the  draft  of  a  charter  constituting  William  Penn, 
Esq.,  absolutely  proprietary  of  a  tract  of  land  in  America 
therein  mentioned,  which  we  humbly  present  to  your  Majesty 
for  your  royal  approbation,  leaving  also  the  naming  of  the 


74  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

said   province   to   your   Majesty,    which    is    most   humbly 
submitted. 

In  response  to  their  inquiry  of  the  attorney-general, 
they  received  the  following  communication  from  the  first 
law  officer  of  the  Crown  during  their  consideration  of  the 
matter: 

May  it  please  your  Lordshiis: 

I  have  considered  the  petition  of  Mr.  William  Penn, 
praying  his  majesty  to  grant  unto  him  a  tract  of  land  in 
America,  lying  north  of  Maryland,  bounded  on  the  east 
by  Delaware  bay,  to  the  westward  by  the  Indian  countries  as 
Maryland,  and  do  not  find  that  such  boundaries  do  intrench 
upon  the  Lord  Baltimore's  province  of  Maryland,  which 
is  bounded  southward  by  a  part  of  Virginia,  eastward  by 
the  main  ocean  and  Delaware  river,  and  northward  by  that 
part  of  Delaware  river  that  lieth  in  the  fortieth  degree  of 
latitude,  and  so  by  a  direct  line  westward  through  the 
continent.  And  the  patent  granted  to  His  Royal  Highness, 
of  New  York  being  bounded  westward  by  the  east  side  of 
Delaware  bay,  is  sufficiently  distinguished  from  the  grant 
desired  by  Mr.  Penn,  which  is  bounded  eastwardly  by 
Delaware  bay  or  river;  so  that  the  tract  of  land  desired 
by  Mr.  Penn  seems  to  be  undisposed  of  by  his  majesty,  ex- 
cept the  imaginary  lines  of  New  England  patents,  which 
are  bounded  westwardly  by  the  main  ocean,  should  give 
them  a  recall,  though  impracticable  to  all  those  vast  terri- 
tories. But  I  am  further  to  offer  unto  your  Lordships,  that 
there  are  several  Dutch  gjid  Swedish  plantations,  which 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  75 

have  been  under  the  English  government,  that  He  scattered 
on  the  westward  of  Delaware  River,  and  some  of  them 
perhaps  within  the  bounds  of  Mr.  Penn's  petition,  and  have 
for  a  long  time,  either  acknowledged  the  protection  of  His 
Royal  Highness,  who  took  them  from  the  Dutch  upon  the 
conquest  of  New  York,  or  of  Lord  Baltimore,  near  whose 
borders  they  are  settled;  and  how  far  Mr.  Penn's  grant  may, 
in  this  consideration,  concern  his  neighbors,  is  most  humbly 
submitted  to  your  Lordships. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  and  it  is  for  that  purpose  I  have  re- 
ferred to  them,  that  pending  this  important  and  protracted 
proceediag  and  investigation,  Lord  Baltimore  presented  be- 
fore the  committee  of  the  privy  council  conducting  it  with 
the  utmost  deliberation  and  impartiality,  no  claim  or  preten- 
sion whatever  to  any  of  the  settlements  on  the  western  side 
of  the  Delaware  Bay  and  river,  although  every  one  then 
existing  lay  below  the  parallel  of  the  fortieth  degree  of  north 
latitude,  and  the  only  way  in  which  their  attention  is  directly 
called  to  that  matter  is  to  be  found  in  the  rather  gratuitous 
allusion  and  suggestion  of  the  attorney-general  contained  in 
the  last  lines  of  his  communication  to  them;  but  even  that 
recognizes  the  right  and  title  of  the  Duke  of  York  to  them, 
as  formerly  Dutch  and  Swedish  plantations  or  settlements 
held  by  the  right  of  conquest,  and  his  peaceable  possession 
of  them  for  several  years  prior  to  the  application  of  Mr. 
Penn  for  his  grant.  But  though  not  needed  for  such  a  pur- 
pose, because  it  is  manifest  from  the  moment  the  petition 
of  Mr.  Penn  was  read  to  them,  they  were  well  aware  that 
Ix)rd  Baltimore's  interests  might  be  affected  by  it.  and  that 


76  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

he  might  have  grounds  for  objecting  to  it,  it  had  the  effect 
to  bring  this  particular  matter  to  their  immediate  and  direct 
attention,  and  the  care  with  which  they  proceeded  to  adjust 
the  southern  boundary  of  the  province  in  reference  to  these 
settlements  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Duke  of  York,  indi- 
cated not  only  a  clear  and  deliberate  recognition  of  his 
right  and  title  to  them  and  to  his  Delaware  or  New  Castle 
colony,  but  (juite  as  clear  and  deliberate  a  repudiation  and 
condemnation  of  Lord  Baltimore's  claim  and  pretension  to 
them,  on  their  part,  under  the  circumstances.  And  such 
having  been  their  final  conclusion  and  decision  in  the  case, 
it  only  became  the  stronger  and  more  conclusive  against  the 
claim  of  Lord  Baltimore  when  it  was  approved  and  con- 
firmed by  the  king  himself  by  the  grant  of  the  province  to 
Mr.  Penn.  And  well  might  it  have  been  inferred  from  the 
course  pursued  by  him  during  that  inquiry,  that  his  lordship 
had  at  last  come  to  the  conclusion  to  renounce  tacitly,  at 
least,  all  further  claim  to  them.  But  scarcely  had  his  royal 
highness  parted  with  his  title  to  them,  thus  recognized  and 
sanctioned  by  such  high  authority,  and  soon  afterwards  fur- 
ther confirmed  to  him  by  a  formal  grant  and  letters  patent 
than  his  pretension  was  revived  by  his  lordship  and  his 
heir  and  successor,  not  to  be  definitively  settled  until  nearly 
Seventy  years  afterwards,  and  then  only  by  a  solemn  decree 
in  the  High  Court  of  Chancery  in  England  against  the 
validity  of  it. 

The  grant  and  letters  patent  from  his  Majesty  Charles 
the  Second  to  his  brother,  and  heir  presumptive  to  his 
throne,  the  Duke  of  York,  to  which  I  have  just  alluded, 
were  made  and  delivered  in  due  form  in  about  two  years 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  77 

after  the  termination  of  the  proceedings  before  the  Lords 
of  the  Committee  for  the  Affairs  of  Trade  and  Plantations, 
on  the  22d  day  of  March,  1683,  and  were  for  "all  that  the 
Town  of  New  Castle  otherwise  called  Delaware  and  the 
Fort  therein  or  thereunto  belonging,  situate,  lying  and 
being  between  Maryland  and  New  Jersey  in  America;  and 
all  that  tract  of  land  lying  within  the  compass  or  circle 
of  twelve  miles  about  the  said  town,  situate,  lying  and 
being  upon  the  River  Delaware,  and  all  the  Islands  in  the 
said  River  of  Delaware,  and  the  said  river  and  soil  thereof, 
lying  north  of  the  southermost  part  of  the  said  circle  of 
twelve  miles  about  the  said  town;  and  all  that  tract  of  land 
upon  Delaware  River  and  Bay,  beginning  twelve  miles 
south  from  the  said  town  of  New  Castle,  otherwise  called 
Delaware,  and  extending  south  to  Cape  Lopen;  together 
with  all  the  lands,  islands,  soils,  rivers,  harbors,  mines, 
minerals,  quarries,  woods,  marshes,  waters,  lakes,  fishings, 
bawkings,  hunting,  fowlings,  and  all  other  royalties,  privi- 
leges, profits,  commodities,  and  hereditaments  to  the  said 
town,  fort,  tracts  of  lands,  islands,  and  premises,  or  to  any 
or  either  of  them  belonging  or  appertaining,  with  their  and 
every  of  their  appurtenances,  situate,  lying,  and  being  in 
America,  and  all  our  estate,  right,  title  and  interest,  benefit* 
advantage,  claim,  and  demand  whatsoever,  of,  in,  or  to  the 
said  town,  fort,  lands,  or  premises,  or  any  part  or  parcel 
thereof,  and  the  reversion  and  reversions,  remainder  and 
remainders  thereof,  together  with  the  yearly  and  other 
rents,  revenues,  and  profits  of  the  premises,  and  of  every 
part  and  parcel  thereof;  to  have  and  to  hold  the  said  town 
of  New  Castle,  otherwise  called  Delaware,  and  Fort,  and 


78  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

all  and  singular  the  said  lands  and  premises,  with  their  and 
every  of  their  appurtenances  hereby  given  and  granted,  or 
herein  before  mentioned  to  be  given  or  granted,  unto  our 
said  dearest  Brother,  James,  Duke  of  York,  his  heirs  and 
assigns  forever."  A  nominal  rent  of  four  beaver-skins  per 
annum,  when  demanded,  being  reserved  therein  to  his 
Majesty,  his  heirs  and  successors.  It  also  granted  to  him 
his  heirs  and  assigns,  the  general  powers  of  internal  gov- 
ernment over  it,  and  of  making  laws  and  enforcing  the  same 
within  its  limits. 

Prior  to  the  date  of  it,  however,  the  Duke  of  York  had 
made  and  delivered  to  William  Penn,  on  the  21st  day  of 
August,   1680,  an  indenture  of  lease  for  the  term  of  ten 
thousand  years  for  the  town  of  New  Castle,  and  the  lands 
and  the  river  about  the  same  within  the  twelve  mile  circle 
surrounding  it,   and  had  afterwards,   on  the  24th  day  of 
August,  1682,  sold  and  conveyed  by  his  deed  of  feoffment 
all  that  the  town  of  New  Castle,  otherwise  called  Delaware, 
and  all  that  tract  of  land  lying  within  the  compass  or  circle 
of  twelve  miles  about  the  same,  situate,  lying,  and  being 
upon  the  river  Delaware  in  America;  and  all  islands  in 
the  said  river  Delaware,  and  the  said  river  and  soil  thereof, 
lying  north  of  the  southermost  part  of  the  said  circle  of 
twelve  miles  about  the  said  town,  and  all  the  estate,  right, 
title,  and  interest  of  his  royal  highness  therein  and  thereto 
belonging;  and  also,  on  the  same  day,  another  deed  of  feoff- 
ment to  him  for  all  the  land  lying  below  the  said  circle  on 
the  river  and  bay,  and  extending  from  it  to  Cape  Henlopen; 
and  under  both  of  which  deeds  of  feoffment  in  fee  to  Mr. 
Penn  livery  of  seisin  was  duly  and  formally  made,  and  he 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  79 

was  thereupon  put  in  full  and  complete  possession  of  all 
the  lands  and  all  the  river  and  soil  thereof,  and  all  the 
premises  so  sold  and  conveyed.  A  moiety  of  all  the  rents 
and  profits  thereof  being  reserved  to  the  duke. 

I  should  here  say  that  the  name  of  Pennsylvania  bestowed 
on  his  province  was  not  only  suggested,  but  was  insisted 
upon  by  the  king,  in  an  interview  with  Mr.  Penn  on  the 
subject,  in  honor  of  his  father,  Admiral  Penn,  his  own 
preference  being  that  of  New  Wales, — Wales  being  the 
land  of  his  nativity,  and  bearing  some  resemblance,  as  he 
thought,  to  his  new  province.  And  every  Pennsylvanian, 
I  think,  ought  to  be  satisfied  that  in  that  matter  the  king 
evinced  better  taste  than  Mr.  Penn. 

His  arrival  on  the  Delaware  after  the  date  of  his  deeds 
of  feoffment  was  at  New  Castle,  on  the  27th  day  of  October, 
168!2,  where  he  was  received  by  the  inhabitants  with  a 
cordial  welcome:  and  within  three  weeks  afterwards  he  had 
writs  issued  for  an  election  of  representatives  to  a  general 
assembly  to  be  held  at  Chester,  to  which  he  had  in  the 
mean  while  changed  its  former  name  of  Upland.  We  even 
then  had  three  organized  counties,  named  respectively  New 
Castle,  Jones,  and  New  Dale,  while  Pennsylvania,  by  the 
operation  of  the  twelve  miles  circle,  had  but  one  and  no 
more,  and  the  germ  of  that  she  had  obtained  from  the  lib- 
erality and  generosity  of  the  Duke  of  York,  and  from 
our  own  incipient  little  State.  Pursuant  to  the  call  and 
Writs  issued  elections  were  held,  and  the  General  Assembly, 
composed  of  members  from  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania 
and  the  three  lower  counties  (or  "territories  of  the  prov- 
ince," as  they  were  soon  after  designated  in  contra-distinc- 


80  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

tion  to  the  province  proper),  convened  at  Chester  on  the 
fourth  day  of  December  following,  and  on  the  petition  from 
the  inhabitants  of  these  counties  asking  for  an  act  of  union 
by  the  governor,  and  for  their  incorporation  with  the  prov- 
ince in  order  to  obtain  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  it,  such  an  act  was  passed  at  its  first  session, 
which  was  only  for  a  few  days.  By  the  terms  of  it  they 
were  annexed  to  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania  as  of  the 
proper  territory  thereof;  and  it  further  provided  that  the 
people  therein  should  be  governed  by  the  same  laws,  and 
enjoy  the  same  privileges  in  all  respects,  as  the  inhabitants 
of  Pennsylvania  then  enjoyed,  or  should  thereafter  enjoy. 
So  that  our  little  State  first  began  its  history  by  a  close  and 
cherished  union  with  the  great  State  of  New  York,  and 
after  that  by  another  spontaneously  sought  with  the  great 
State  of  Pennsylvania;  and  being  devoted  to  union  of  that 
kind  from  the  start,  it  was  quite  natural  that  it  should  have 
stepped  as  promptly  and  spontaneously  into  the  great  union 
of  the  States  as  soon  as  the  constitution  of  it  was  formed 
and  presented  for  adoption.  She  has  always  been  devoted 
to  such  union,  and  never  tried  secession  but  once,  and  then 
she  made  a  complete  and  grand  success  of  it,  as  we  can  all 
proudly  and  gratefully  attest  to  this  day. 

Early  in  the  ensuing  month  of  January,  1683,  the  General 
Assembly  again  met,  this  time  in  Philadelphia,  the  Provin- 
cial Council  having  also  assembled  there  a  few  days  before. 
There  were  then  six  counties  organized  and  represented  in 
both  bodies,  three  in  the  province  and  the  same  number  in 
the  territories,  and  to  show  the  liberality  and  enlarged  views 
of  William  Penn  on  the  subject  of  legislative  representation. 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  81 

I  will  here  simply  state  that  by  his  original  charter  of  gov- 
ernment conferred  upon  the  inhabitants  of  his  province,  and 
the  act  of  settlement  passed  at  the  preceding  session,  each 
of  these  counties  was  represented  by  nine  delegates  in  the 
General  Assembly,  and  by  three  members  in  the  Provincial 
Council,  elected  by  what  were  then  denominated  the  free- 
men of  the  county;  but  with  the  sanction  of  the  governor 
and  at  the  request  of  the  Assembly,  the  former  number  was 
reduced  to  six  for  each  county  at  that  session. 

Before  I  proceed  any  further,  I  should  here  remark  that 
Cecilius,  Lord  Baltimore,  died  and  was  succeeded  by  his 
son  and  heir-at-law,  Charles,  Lord  Baltimore,  in  1676. 

Meanwhile,  between  the  sessions  of  the  General  Assembly 
before  mentioned,  Governor  Penn,  who  had  previously  de- 
spatched a  messenger  to  Lord  Baltimore  to  arrange  a  meet- 
ing between  them  in  relation  to  the  boundaries  of  their 
provinces,  joined  him  at  West  River  on  the  19th  of  De- 
cember, 1683,  where  he  found  his  lordship  attended  by  a 
numerous  suite,  and  who  by  his  attention  and  civilities  and 
the  state  with  which  he  was  surrounded,  probably  sought 
as  much  to  impress  the  plain  and  simple  proprietary  of  the 
adjoining  province  with  his  exalted  character  and  power, 
as  to  flatter  and  please  him  with  these  demonstrations  of 
respect  for  the  like  office  and  position  which  he  held  and 
enjoyed  on  the  other  side  of  the  unsettled  and  disputed 
boundary  which  divided  them.  In  their  conference  the 
next  day  Mr.  Penn  presented  to  him  a  letter  from  King 
Charles  the  Second,  to  the  effect  that  Lord  Baltimore  had 
but  two  degrees  according  to  his  patent,  and  that,  beginning 
at  Watkin's  Point,  he  should  admeasure  the  degrees  at  sixty 


8*^  ADDRESS  Oi\  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

miles  to  the  degree,  that  being  well  and  universally  under- 
stood to  be  the  extent  of  a  degree  of  terrestrial  latitude  at 
that  point  when  his  letters  patent  were  issued.  To  which 
he  replied  that  the  king  was  greatly  mistaken,  and  that  he 
would  not  abandon  his  patent  to  follow  the  king's  letter, 
nor  could  a  letter  void  his  patent;  and  by  that  he  would 
stand;  and  which  was  about  the  substance  of  all  he  had  to 
say  on  the  subject  to  the  end  of  the  conference.  To  which 
Mr.  Penn  rejoined  that  he  thought  the  mistake  was  on  his 
part,  for  though  his  patent  began  at  Watkin's  Point  and 
went  to  the  fortieth  degree,  yet  that  was  assumed  to  be 
under  the  thirty-eighth  degree,  and  if  he  had  to  start  be- 
low that  degree,  then  Virginia  would  be  wronged.  At  this 
point  of  the  colloquy,  the  uncle  and  chancellor  of  his  lord- 
ship, who  was  present  during  the  conference,  remarked  that 
his  father's  grant  was  not  by  degrees,  as  at  first  contem- 
plated by  him  when  he  applied  for  it,  for  he  had  more  of 
Virgnia  given  him,  but  being  planted,  and  the  grant  intend- 
ing only  land  not  planted,  or  possessed  by  any  other  than 
savage  nations,  he  left  it  out  so  that  it  might  not  forfeit  the 
rest.  Upon  which  it  instantly  occured  to  the  mind  of  Mr. 
Penn  that  by  that  answer  he  could  pretend  nothing  to  Dela- 
ware which  had  been  discovered,  bought,  and  planted  by 
the  Dutch  before  that  time,  and  so  it  could  not  have  been 
intended  to  be  included  in  it;  but  I  must  here  observe  that 
that  was  true  only  as  to  the  purchase  from  Cape  Henlopen 
to  the  mouth  of  the  river  and  the  settlement  of  De  Vries's 
colony  on  the  Hoorn  Kill,  so  far  as  our  side  of  the  bay 
and  river,  was  concerned.  And  Mr.  Penn  also  considered 
that  even  if  his  lordship's  patent  had  in  good  faith  and 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  83 

according  to  the  intention  of  it  included  any  part  of 
Delaware  Bay  and  River,  his  lordship  had  forfeited  his  right 
to  it  by  the  long  interval  of  time  which  had  elapsed  without 
any  possession  of  it  on  his  part,  or  reducing  it  to  the  sov- 
ereignty of  England  under  which  he  claimed  it,  until  the 
king  at  last  had  to  do  that,  and  therefore  it  was  his  to  do 
as  he  pleased  with  it.  Finding,  however,  that  his  lordship's 
mind  was  fixed  on  that  point,  he  next  proposed  to  him 
that  though  it  was  two  degrees  and  a  half  from  Watkin's 
Point  to  the  fortieth  degree  of  north  latitude,  at  sixty  miles 
to  the  degree,  instead  of  seventy,  yet  if  he  would  consent 
that  the  measurement  should  be  computed  at  sixty  miles 
to  the  degree,  he  would  agree  to  commence  at  the  fortieth 
degree,  fall  where  it  might.  But  his  lordship  dissented, 
and  the  conference  was  concluded  without  any  compromise 
or  adjustment  of  the  matter. 

In  the  month  of  May  following  he  received  a  formal 
message  from  Lord  Baltimore  to  meet  him  at  the  head  of 
Chesapeake  Bay,  but  his  engagements  preventing  it,  he  met 
him  a  few  days  later  ten  miles  west  of  New  Castle,  and 
thence  invited  and  accompanied  him  to  that  place,  where  he 
entertained  him  as  handsomely  as  the  facilities  of  the  town 
would  afford;  and  finding  that  he  was  desirous  of  speaking 
privately  with  him  only,  he  proposed  that  whatever  com- 
munications were  to  pass  between  them  should  be  in  writing 
in  the  presence  of  their  respective  councils  at  their  several 
lodgings,  the  better  to  avoid  misapprehension  or  failure  of 
memory  in  the  progress  of  their  negotiations  on  the  sub- 
ject. But.  his  lordship  deferred  it,  and  excused  himself  on 
the  plea  that  he  was  not  well  and  would  return  to  Maryland 


84  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

as  soon  as  he  could,  and  reserve  any  further  consideration 
of  it  for  another  season.  Penn  had  learned,  however,  prior 
to  that  time,  that  he  had  issued  a  proclamation  in\  iting  set- 
tlers, under  his  authority  and  promise  of  protection  as  the 
proprietary  of  the  Province  of  Maryland,  into  our  counties 
at  lower  prices  for  land  than  he  was  offering  them,  and  that 
the  proclamation  was  attracting  some  attention  in  those 
counties.  The  next  communication  which  he  received 
from  his  lordship  was  a  formal  demand,  by  a  special  agent 
duly  authorized  to  present  it,  of  all  the  country  south  of  the 
fortieth  degree  of  north  latitude.,  both  in  the  Provilice  of 
Pennsylvania  and  the  three  lower  counties  annexed  to  it, 
and  the  same  being  promptly  refused,  a  party  from  Mary- 
land, under  the  command  of  Colonel  George  Talbot,  in  the 
spring  of  1684,  made  forcible  entry  on  several  plantations 
in  the  territory,  and  who  even  proceeded  so  far  in  this  hos- 
tile invasion  as  to  seize  a  piece  of  ground  five  miles  west  of 
New  Castle,  belonging  to  a  gentleman  by  the  name  of  Ogle, 
who  had  come  over  with  Sir  Robert  Carr,  and  had  partici- 
pated in  the  capture  of  Fort  Cassimer  and  the  English  con- 
quest of  the  three  lower  counties,  and  erected  a  log  fort 
upon  it,  raised  a  breastwork  and  built  a  palisade  about  it, 
and  placed  a  force  of  armed  men  in  it,  and  which  he  held 
for  some  time  against  the  formal  demands  of  the  civil 
authorities  at  New  Castle,  in  the  name  and  under  the  com- 
mission of  Lord  Baltimore.  In  the  mean  while,  the  gover- 
nor and  council  at  Pliiladelphia  instituted  legal  measures  to 
reinstate  the  parties  dispossessed,  and  to  have  the  invaders 
prosecuted  according  to  law,  and  a  full  account  of  which 
was  forthwith  addressed  by  letter  from  Governor  Penn  to 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE  85 

His  Royal  Highness,  the  Duke  of  York.  His  lordship 
must  have  felt  himself  by  this  time  impelled  by  a  stringent 
necessity  to  fortif j^  his  claim  and  title  by  some  show  of 
actual  possession,  or  he  would  hardly  have  ventured  at  that 
late  day,  and  after  all  that  had  happened,  on  such  a  rash  and 
desperate  expedient.  But  not  long  after  this  event  Lord 
Baltimore  returned  to  England,  and  Governor  Penn,  appre- 
hending his  purpose,  and  aware  that  the  controversy  con- 
cerning their  boundaries  would  shortly  be  brought  again, 
before  the  Lords  of  the  Committee  for  Trade  and  Planta- 
tions, soon  followed  him.  In  four  months  after  his  arrival 
in  England  Charles  the  Second  died,  and  his  brother  James, 
Duke  of  York,  peaceably  succeeded  him  under  the  title 
of  King  James  the  Second  of  England,  and  after  the  delay 
w^hich  followed  this  event  and  two  hearings  before  the  Lords 
of  the  Committee,  at  which  Lord  Baltimore  and  Governor 
Penn  were  both  present  in  person,  and  after  full  argument 
of  the  question  before  them,  on  the  13th  day  of  November, 
1685,  they  directed  the  following  order  of  council  to  be 
entered:  That  the  said  lands  intended  to  be  granted  by 
the  Lord  Baltimore's  patent  were  only  such  lands  as  were 
cultivated  or  inhabited  by  savages,  and  that  the  part  then 
in  dispute  was  inhabited  and  planted  by  Christians  at  and 
before  the  date  of  the  Lord  Baltimore's  patent,  as  it  had 
been  ever  since  that  time,  and  continued  as  a  distinct  colony 
from  that  of  Maryland,  and  so  they  were  of  opinion  that 
for  avoiding  further  difference,  the  tract  of  land  lying  be- 
tween the  River  and  Bay  of  Delaware  and  the  Eastern  Sea 
on  the  one  side,  and  Chesapeake  Bay  on  the  other,  be 
divided  into  two  equal  parts  by  a  line  from  the  latitude  of 


86  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

Cape  Henlopen  to  the  fortieth  degree  of  north  latitude  (the 
south  boundary  of  Pennsylvania  by  charter),  and  that  the 
eastern  half  thereof  be  adjudged  to  His  Majesty  (viz.,  King 
James,  who,  when  Duke  of  York,  granted  to  Mr.  William 
Penn),  and  the  other  half  remain  to  the  Lord  Baltimore,  as 
comprised  in  his  charter.  And  this  was  not  only  afterwards 
recommended,  but  it  was  ordered  by  the  king  to  be  done 
in  1709. 

I  have  now  traced  with  too  much  prolixity,  I  am  aware, 
the  facts  of  the  case  and  the  history  of  this  question  from 
the  first  European  or  Christian  settlement  in  this  State  down 
to  the  year  1685,  but  I  do  not  propose  to  pursue  it  in  detail 
any  further,  although  sixty-five  lingering  years  still  remain, 
through  which  it  slumbered  for  the  most  part  in  a  state 
of  comparative  silence  and  suspension  before  we  reach  the 
ultimate  conclusion  and  settlement  of  it.  There  is,  how- 
ever, one  important  and  independent  event  in  the  history 
of  our  State  which  I  will  here  notice  before  I  proceed  any 
further  with  the  narrative  of  the  question.  The  proprietary 
and  governor,  William  Penn,  had  been  long  absent  from  the 
province  and  unavoidably  detained  in  England  by  the  state 
of  his  affairs  and  a  succession  of  misfortunes  and  calamities 
there,  from  most  of  which  the  purity  of  his  life  and  charac- 
ter should  have  been  alone  sufficient  to  have  exempted  him, 
and  owing  to  that  circumstance  probably,  as  much  as  any 
other,  jealousy  and  dissension  had  sprung  up  between  the 
province  and  the  territories,  in  the  legislative  as  well  as  in 
other  branches  of  the  provincial  government,  in  which  the 
counties  of  the  two  portions  of  the  whole  territory  being 
equal  in  number,  and  also  in  representation,  there  was,  of 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  87 

course,  from  the  beginning  a  very  delicate  and  sensitive 
equipoise  of  power  between  them  in  that  branch  of  it.  And 
besides,  from  the  very  start  the  province  had  not  only  been 
increasing  in  population  and  wealth  more  rapidly  than  the 
three  lower  counties,  but  more  so  than  any  other  English 
colony  or  province  in  America.  And  yet,  strange  to  say, 
notwithstanding  this  fact,  the  first  manifestation  of  invidious 
feeling,  or  spirit  of  sectional  jealousy  exhibited  by  the  one 
towards  the  other  in  the  General  Assembly,  was  on  the  part 
of  the  province  towards  the  territories.  Governor  Penn  had 
sadly  disappointed  the  hopes  and  expectations  of  New  Cas- 
tle, and  of  many  in  the  three  lower  counties  also,  when  he 
passed  by  such  a  magnificent  site  as  that  of  New  Castle,  and 
went  so  far  above  it,  into  the  woods  and  among  the  Indians, 
to  found  a  great  city  and  a  great  capital  for  his  fine  province; 
but  for  that  very  reason,  in  part  at  least,  he  had  conceived 
form  the  first  a  kinder  regard  for  the  place,  and  a  stronger 
desire  to  promote  its  welfare  and  prosperity  as  far  as  it  was 
in  his  power. 

Actuated  by  this,  as  well  as  by  other  considerations,  he 
had  occasionally  called  and  convened  the  General  Assembly 
at  New  Castle  before  his  departure  for  P^ngland,  and  having 
returned  after  an  absence  of  nearly  fifteen  years,  during 
which  period  much  dissatisfaction  with  certain  i)roceedings 
of  the  council  of  the  government  having  arisen  in  the  three 
lower  counties,  in  December,  1699,  he  issued  his  next  call 
for  the  General  Assembly  to  meet  in  New  Castle  in  the  fall 
of  1700,  with  a  view,  it  is  said,  to  conciliate  and  reconcile 
this  dissatisfaction.  It  was  not  his  custom  to  address  them 
by  written  messages,  but  when  they  assembled  he  went  be- 


88  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

fore  them  in  person,  and  generally  in  a  brief  speech  recom- 
mended such  measures  as  he  deemed  advisable,  and  the 
one  he  made  at  the  commencement  of  the  session  I  am  now 
speaking  of  is  comprised  in  seven  printed  lines.  It  recom- 
mended an  amendment  of  the  frame  of  government,  a  re- 
vision and  completion  of  the  body  of  laws,  and  particularly 
for  the  settling  of  property,  a  supply  for  the  support  of 
government,  and  closed  with  these  words,  "I  recommend 
to  you  amity  and  concord  among  yourselves."  The  mem- 
bers were  all  very  happy  to  meet  him,  and  the  session  was 
harmonious,  and  closed  apparently  to  the  satisfaction  of  all 
its  members,  both  from  the  province  and  from  the  territories. 
There  was  among  other  statutes  a  general  revenue  act  passed 
at  that  session,  applicable  alike  to  the  province  and  the 
territories. 

The  next  session  I  shall  refer  to  was  called  by  him  to 
meet  in  Philadelphia  on  the  15th  day  of  September,  1701. 
In  the  mean  while  there  had  been  another  general  election 
of  its  members,  with  an  increase  in  their  number  from  the 
province,  and  which,  of  course,  for  the  first  time  transferred 
the  preponderance  of  power  in  the  body  to  that  section.  But 
to  the  surprise  of  members  from  the  three  lower  counties, 
not  long  after  it  had  assembled  an  act  was  introduced  by  two 
members  of  the  council  elected  from  the  province  to  confirm 
the  revenue  act  before  mentioned  and  all  the  acts  passed  at 
the  preceding  session  of  the  Assembly  held  at  New  Castle 
in  1700,  on  the  ground  that  such  a  confirmation  at  a  session 
held  in  the  province  was  necessary  to  give  them  any  force 
or  effect  in  the  province,  or  in  other  words,  that  it  was 
not  competent  for  the  body  when  sitting  in  the  territories. 


BOUNDARIEf^  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE  89 

though  composed  of  all  its  members,  and  so  sitting  under 
the  call  of  the  proprietary  and  governor,  to  pass  any  law  to 
bind  the  province  or  the  inhabitants  of  it.  Such  an  arro- 
gant assumption  and  pretension,  and  such  a  foregone  con- 
clusion to  subordinate  and  degrade  the  territories  to  a 
condition  so  inferior  to  that  of  the  province,  and  so  mani- 
festly contrary  to  the  basis  of  equality  on  which  the  union 
of  the  two  sections  had  been  formed  in  that  respect,  sug- 
gested as  it  was  for  the  first  time  immediately  on  the  province 
attaining  a  majority  in  the  body,  met  of  -course  with  all  the 
indignant  and  vehement  resistance  from  the  representa- 
tives of  the  territories  which  it  so  well  deserved.  It  was, 
however,  insisted  on  and  sustained  by  the  unanimous 
voice  of  the  members  from  the  province,  and  when  on  the 
10th  of  October  it  was  put  upon  its  first  vote,  the  entire 
delegations  present  from  New  Castle  and  Kent  counties, 
numbering  nine  members,  arose  from  their  seats  and  retired 
from  the  chamber.  The  vote  was  then  immediately  taken  on 
the  bill,  and  it  was  passed  by  the  remaining  members,  con- 
sisting of  twelve  from  the  province  and  two  from  Sussex, 
no  others  from  that  county  attending  at  the  session.  But 
wherefore  the  two  who  remained  did  not  retire  also  history 
saith  not.  The  retiring  members  however  reappeared  in 
their  seats  five  days  afterwards,  and  on  being  interrogated, 
answered  that  they  were  willing  to  join  with  the  other 
members,  provided  they  might  have  liberty  to  enter  their 
dissent  to  the  bill  for  the  confirmation  of  the  laws,  "and 
nothing  might  be  carried  over  their  heads  by  over-voting 
them;"  and  declared  that  they  were  willing  to  anything 
for  the  good  and  tranquility  of  the  government,  and  then 


90  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

withdrew.  They  were  afterwards  recalled  into  the  House 
again,  and  were  told  they  should  have  liberty  to  enter  their 
dissent  to  the  bill  referred  to,  but  for  the  House  to  promise 
not  to  over-vote  them,  it  was  a  thing  so  unheard  of,  and  such 
an  infringement  of  the  rules  and  privileges  of  assemblies,  the 
House  could  not  yield  to  that  demand.  The  reading  of  the 
till  three  times  over  was  then  proposed,  when  the  dissent- 
ing members  departed  from  the  House  again.  By  confer- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  House  and  the  mediation  of  the 
governor  with  the-  absenting  members,  an  accommodation 
was  afterwards  affected,  and  they  returned  to  their  seats  in 
the  House  a  few  days  before  the  close  of  the  session  and 
declared  their  dissent  to  the  bill  which  had  been  finally 
passed  in  their  absence,  and  continued  to  perform  their 
functions  and  duties  as  members  for  the  remainder  of  it. 
But  all  foreseeing  that  this  was  not  the  end  of  the  disruption 
threatened,  amendments  were  incorporated  in  the  charter 
of  privileges  originally  granted  by  the  proprietary  and  gov- 
ernor to  the  inhabitants  of  the  province  and  territories  on 
their  union  as  one  under  his  government,  providing  for  and 
sanctioning  in  advance  on  his  part  their  legislative  separa- 
tion and  the  establishment  of  a  distinct  legislative  assembly^ 
both  in  the  province  arid  in  the  territories,  and  which  was 
afterwards  completely  accomplished  by  each  of  them  within 
the  time  and  in  the  mode  provided  for.  And  after  the  close 
of  the  session  of  1701,  the  members  of  the  Assembly  for  the 
province,  and  the  members  of  the  Assembly  for  the  territo- 
ries, or  the  three  lower  counties  on  Delaware,  a$  they  were 
now  generally  called,  never  met  again  in  joint  session,  or  as 
one  body;  and  for  all  the  purposes  and  powers  of  govern- 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  91 

ment,  legislative,  judicial,  and  ministerial,  they  became  en- 
tirely separate,  distinct,  and  independent  of  each  other,  the 
only  remaining  governmental  link  or  ligament  connecting 
them  together  being  one  and  the  same  proprietary  and  gov- 
ernor over  both  of  them  from  that  time  until  the  declaration 
of  American  independence. 

I  now  descend  through  the  silence  of  the  intervening 
period  before  alluded  to  in  reference  to  the  particular 
matter  under  consideration,  to  the  year  1732.  Both  Wil- 
liam Penn  and  Cecilius,  Lord  Baltimore,  had  been  gathered 
to  their  fathers  years  before  this  time,  leaving  this  unsettled 
question  as  an  unfortunate  legacy  and  yoke  of  discord  to 
vex  and  perplex  their  descendants  and  heirs-at-law,  when  a 
change  at  length  seemed,  for  a  time  at  least,  to  come  over 
the  spirit  of  the  succeeding  Lord  Baltimore,  the  third  from 
Cecilius,  and  articles  of  agreement  under  seal  executed  in 
England  on  the  10th  day  of  May,  in  that  year,  were  entered 
into  between  the  heirs  of  Governor  Penn  and  his  lordship, 
to  settle  this  dispute  on  the  basis  recommended  by  the 
Lords  of  the  Committee  for  Trade  and  Plantations  and 
commanded  by  the  king,  which  I  have  already  read  to  you. 
The  articles  of  agreement  were  accompanied  with  a  map  or 
plan  of  the  territory  to  be  divided  under  them,  and  which 
related  solely  to  our  peninsula,  as  high  up  as  the  northern 
and  circular  boundary  of  our  State,  which  Lord  Baltimore's 
agents,  by  his  directions,  had  prepared  for  the  purpose 
before  the  agreement  was  entered  into,  and  which  was  an- 
nexed and  specially  referred  to  in  the  agreement  for  places 
and  points  mentioned  in  it;  and  upon  that  plan  Fen  wick's 
Island  was  named  and  designated  as  Cape  Henlopen,  and 


92  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

from  that  island  a&  the  place  of  beginning,  by  the  terms  of 
the  agreement,  a  line  was  to  be  run  due  west  to  the  Chesa- 
peake Bay,  and  from  the  middle  of  that  line  a  direct  line 
was  to  be  run  in  a  northerly  direction  until  it  struck  as  a 
tangent  a  circle  of  twelve  miles,  to  be  drawn  about  the  town 
of  New  Castle,  and  from  the  point  of  contact  of  that  tan- 
gent and  circle  a  line  was  to  be  run  in  a  due  north  direction 
to  the  point  where  it  would  be  intersected  by  a  line  to  be 
run  in  a  due  west  direction  from  a  point  fifteen  miles  south 
of  Philadelphia,  with  the  qualification  or  proviso  that  if  the 
said  line  to  be  run  in  a  due  north  direction  should  cut  off 
any  part  of  the  said  circle,  such  part  of  the  circle  should 
constitute  the  boundary  of  division.  And  the  boundaries 
were  to  be  marked  by  stone  pillars  to  be  set  up  on  it.  By 
the  terms  of  the  agreement,  also,  commissioners  were  to 
be  appointed  by  the  parties  to  do  this  on  or  before  the  25th 
day  of  December,  1733,  and  for  want  of  a  quorum  of  com- 
missioners to  meet  at  any  time  for  that  purpose,  the  party, 
by  default  of  whose  commissioners  the  articles  could  not 
be  carried  into  execution,  should  forfeit  to  the  other  the 
penalty  of  five  thousand  pounds;  and  when  done  the  par- 
ties were  to  make  conveyance  to  each  other  for  their  several 
and  respective  portions  of  the  territory  to  be  divided  by  it 
between  them. 

But  for  eighteen  years  more  the  question  still  remained 
unsettled,  when  at  last  a  bill  was  filed  in  the  High  Court  of 
Chancery  in  England  by  the  heirs  of  William  Penn  against 
Lord  Baltimore,  for  the  specific  performance  and  execution 
of  the  articles  of  agreement,  all  the  parties  then  being  in 
that  country,  which  was  resisted  by  his  lordship,  and  after 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  98 

it  had  been  duly  prepared  for  trial,  and  all  the  evidence  had 
been  taken  on  both  sides,  was  finally  heard  and  decided 
by  Lord  Chancellor  Hardwick  in  1750.  It  was  very  thor- 
oughly and  elaborately  argued  by  able  counsel  on  both 
sides,  and  as  the  counsel  for  the  defence  endeavored  to 
avoid  the  obligation  of  the  agreement,  they  entered  into 
the  consideration  and  discussion  of  the  whole  question, 
from  its  earliest  origin,  and  as  it  stood  before  the  agreement 
had  been  entered  into,  and  in  which  they  were  followed  by 
the  counsel  on  the  other  side.  The  jurisdiction  of  his 
honor,  as  the  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  England,  to  try 
such  a  case  of  disputed  claim  to  real  estate  and  a  princely 
province  in  the  remote  regions  of  America,  was  of  course 
questioned  and  denied,  and  was  among  the  first  grounds 
of  defence  earnestly  urged  by  the  counsel  for  his  lordship, 
in  reply  to  which,  in  announcing  his  final  opinion  after  the 
closing  of  the  case,  he  took  occasion  to  pay  our  three  lower 
counties  the  fallowing  flattering  compliment  in  a  classical 
allusion,  which  for  dignity  and  elegance  was  never  sur- 
passed, I  am  sure,  by  anything  that  ever  fell  from  a  Lord 
Chancellor  in  England.  It  is  in  the  opening  paragraph  of 
his  opinion,  and  as  it  strikes  the  key-note  of  the  whole  of 
it  in  the  very  first  line,  I  will  repeat  it:  "I  directed  this  case 
to  stand  over  for  judgment,  not  so  much  from  any  doubt  of 
what  was  the  justice  of  the  case,  as  by  reason  of  the  nature 
of  it,  its  great  consequence  and  importance,  and  the  great 
labor  and  ability  of  the  argument  on  both  sides;  it  being 
for  the  determination  of  the  right  and  boundaries  of  two 
great  provincial  governments  and  three  counties;  of  a 
nature  worthy  of  the  judicature  of  a  Roman  Senate  rather 


94  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

than  a  single  judge,  and  my  consolation  is,  that  if  I  should 
err  in  my  judgment,  there  is  a  judicature  equal  in  dignity 
to  a  Roman  Senate  that  will  correct  it."  And  that  judi- 
cature to  which  he  referred,  of  course,  was  the  House  of 
Lords  in  England.  But  when  we  reflect  that  that  decision, 
which  practically  settled  this  question  forever,  and  saved 
our  territory  from  the  persistent  and  pertinacious  effort  of 
Lord  Baltimore  and  his  ancestors  to  absorb  it  in  his  Prov- 
ince of  Maryland,  had  the  direct  effect,  in  the  due  course  of 
the  historical  and  political  events  which  soon  followed  it,  to 
make  those  three  counties,  in  sixteen  years  from  that  time, 
a  sovereign  and  independent  State  in  the  first  confederation 
of  the  United  States  of  America,  the  justice  as  well  as  the 
dignity  of  it  becomes  still  more  appropriate  and  striking. 
The  obligation  of  the  agreement  had  been  denied  in  the 
answer  and  in  the  argument  on  the  ground  of  mistake  and 
surprise  on  the  part  of  Lord  Baltimore,  who  did  not  know, 
as  it  was  contended,  at  the  time  of  entering  into  it,  the 
superiority  of  his  own  claim  over  that  of  the  complain- 
ants to  the  three  lower  counties;  and  as  to  the  alleged 
misrepresentation  in  the  petition  of  the  first  Lord  Balti- 
more for  the  grant  of  the  province,  they  further  contended 
that  there  had  been  no  such  Dutch  or  Christian  settlement 
proved  to  have  been  established  at  the  Hoorn  Kill  or  else- 
where within  their  limits  prior  to  and  at  the  time  of  the 
issuing  of  his  letters  patent  aS  could  invalidate  his  grant  on 
that  ground;  and  even  spoke  of  De  Vries's  colony  as  con- 
sisting of  mere  stragglers  there,  without  the  knowledge, 
recognition,  or  sanction  of  the  king.  But,  on  the  evidence 
in  the  case,   the  Lord  Chancellor  overruled  both  objec- 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  95 

tions,  and  on  the  latter  remarked  that  if  they  had  been 
but  stragglers  settled  there,  yet  if  they  had  set  up  marks 
of  possession  on  the  soil,  though  not  expressly  recognized 
by  the  Crown  as  a  settlement,  it  would  have  been  sufficient 
to  constitute  the  misrepresentation  a  deceit  on  the  Crown. 
And  although  he  sustained  the  agreement  and  decided  the 
case  upon  it,  still,  as  the  bill  and  answer  and  the  argument 
of  counsel  had  placed  the  history  of  the  whole  case  before 
him  from  its  inception,  he  took  occasion  to  review  and 
consider  it  in  the  opinion  delivered  by  him,  in  which  he 
held  that  the  relief  prayed  for  in  the  bill  was  the  ordinary 
equity  dispensed  in  that  court,  the  specific  performance  of 
an  agreement  for  the  settling  and  fixing  of  boundaries  in 
peace,  to  prevent  diswder  and  mischief,  which  in  remote 
countries  distant  from  the  seat  of  government  were  most 
likely  to  happen  and  prove  most  mischievous.  That  his 
court  had  no  original  jurisdiction  on  the  direct  question 
of  the  original  right  of  the  boundaries,  but  the  bill  did  not 
stand  in  need  of  that,  because  it  was  founded  on  articles  of 
agreement  executed  in  England  under  seal  for  mutual  con- 
siderations, which  gave  jurisdiction  to  the  King's  courts, 
both  of  law  and  equity,  whatever  might  be  the  subject- 
matter.  The  conscience  of  the  party  was  bound  by  the 
agreement,  and  being  within  the  jurisdiction  of  that  court, 
which  acted  in  personam,  the  court  might  properly  decree 
it  as  an  agreement  if  there  was  a  foundation  for  it. 

But  the  settling  of  the  limits  was  not  a  dismembering  of 
a  province,  and  if  a  license  from  the  Crown  were  necessary 
in  law  or  policy  to  do  that,  it  sufiiciently  appeared  by  orders 
in  council  made  in  1685  and  1709,  that  the  Crown  had  not 


96  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

only  recommended,  but  ordered  this  division  to  be  made,  so 
far  as  respects  the  three  lower  counties,  as  to  which  there 
was  no  dismembering,  for  the  dividing  line  was  there  ex- 
actly the  same;  indeed,  the  circle  was  not  within  those 
orders.  But  as  to  that  no  difficulty  could  arise.  The  ar- 
ticles were  not  like  a  submission  to  arbitration.  In  those 
cases  generally  the  time  is  conditional,  so  as  determination 
be  made  by  a  certain  day;  but  here  the  line  and  circle  are 
agreed  on  by  distinct,  independent  covenants,  and  that  they 
shall  form  the  boundaries  of  these  tracts  of  land.  That 
therefore,  was  a  particular,  certain  specific  contract  of  par- 
ties that  those  should  be  the  boundaries.  There  was  nothing 
left  to  the  judgment  of  the  commmissioners,  who  were  merely 
ministerial  agents  to  run  the  lines  according  to  the  agree- 
ment, and  set  the  mark.  Therefore  it  was  not  like  an  award, 
but  an  agreement  which  this  court  would  see  pursued. 

As  to  any  imposition  or  surprise,  the  evidence  was  clearly 
contrary  thereto.  It  would  be  unnecessary  to  enter  into  the 
particulars  of  that  evidence;  but  it  appeared  that  the  agree- 
ment was  originally  proposed  by  the  defendant  himself;  he 
himself  produced  the  plan  afterwards  annexed  to  the  ar- 
ticles; he  himself  reduced  the  heads  of  it  to  writing,  and 
was  very  well  assisted  in  making  it;  and  further,  that  there 
was  a  great  length  of  time  taken  for  consideration  and  re- 
ducing it  to  form.  Then  was  he  to  presume  that  he  was 
imposed  on  in  a  plan,  too,  sent  to  him  by  his  own  agents; 
as  to  the  plan  itself,  it  was  in  his  own  power.  A  plain  mis- 
take, without  imposition  or  fraud,  would  be  a  ground  for  not 
decreeing  a  specific  performance.  But  the  evidence  shows 
that  the  defendant  and  his  ancestors  were  conversant  with 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  97 

this  dispute  about  fifty  years  before  the  agreement  was 
entered  into;  therefore  no  ignorance,  want  of  information, 
or  mistakes  were  to  be  presumed.  And  in  cases  of  that 
kind  after  an  agreement,  and  plain  mistake  contary  to  the 
intent  of  parties  not  shown,  it  was  not  necessary  for  the 
court  to  resort  to  the  original  right  of  the  parties;  it  was 
sufficient  if  it  were  doubtful  merely. 

To  consider  the  points  in  dispute,  and  first  upon  the  de- 
fendant's charter,  on  which  it  was  insisted  that  the  whole  of 
the  fortieth  degree  of  north  latitude  was  included,  and  if  so, 
it  was  not  to  be  limited  by  any  recital  in  the  preamble.  There 
was  great  ground  for  saying  that  the  computation  of  lati- 
tude at  the  time  of  the  grant  varied  much  from  what  they 
were  then,  and  that  they  were  at  that  time  set  much  lower 
than  at  present.  But  whatever  that  was,  did  it  take  the 
whole  of  it  in  by  description?  It  came  to  the  question 
whether  the  usque  ad  was  inclusive  or  exclusive;  therefore, 
however  described,  the  same  question  remained. 

But  there  was  another  argument  advanced  by  the  plaintiffs 
to  restrain  the  defendant's  charter  from  taking  in  the  whole 
fortieth  degree,  viz.,  the  recital  of  it,  because  they  say  the 
information  given  to  the  Crown  by  Lord  Baltimore  was  that 
this  part  was  land  uncultivated  and  possessed  by  barbarians; 
whereas  it  was  not  so,  but  was  possessed  by  Dutch  and 
Swedes,  and  therefore  the  king  was  deceived  in  his  grant. 
There  was  considerable  evidence  that  Dutch  and  Swedes 
were  settled  on  the  east  part  of  that  country.  But  that  was 
said  to  be  no  deceit  on  the  Crown;  for,  though  some  strag- 
glers were  settled  there,  yet  if  not  recognized  by  the  Crown, 
that  was  not  a  settlement.     He  was  of  a  different  opinion. 


98  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

For  in  those  countries  it  had  been  always  taken  that  the 
European  country  which  has  first  set  up  marks  has  gained 
the  right,  though  not  formed  into  a  regular  colony.  And 
that  was  very  reasonable  on  the  argument  on  which  they 
proceeded.  Then  would  not  that  affect  the  grant?  If  the 
fact  were  so,  that  would  be  as  great  a  deceit  on  the  Crown 
in  notion  of  law  as  any  other  matter  arising  from  the  infor. 
mation  of  the  party;  because  such  grants  tend  to  involve 
this  Crown  in  wars  and  disputes  with  other  nations;  nor 
could  there  be  a  greater  deceit  than  a  misrepresentation 
tending  to  such  a  consequence,  which  would  be  a  ground  to 
repeal  the  letters  patent  by  scire  facias. 

Next  consider  the  dispute  on  Penn's  charter,  which  grants 
to  him  all  that  tract  of  land  in  America  from  twelve  miles 
distance  from  New  Castle  to  the  forty-third  degree  of  north 
latitude,  under  which  the  plaintiffs  do  not  pretend  a  title  to 
the  three  lower  counties,  which  relates  to  the  two  feoffments 
in  1682.  Upon  that  title  it  is  clear  by  the  proof  that  the 
true  situation  of  Cape  Henlopen  is  as  it  is  marked  in  the 
plan  annexed  to  the  articles  of  agreement,  and  not  where 
Cape  Cornelius  is,  as  the  defendant  insists,  which  would 
leave  out  a  great  part  of  what  was  intended  to  be  included 
in  the  grant;  and  there  was  strong  evidence  of  seizin  and 
possession  by  Penn  of  that  spot  of  Cape  Henlopen,  and  of 
all  acts  of  ownership  in  regard  to  it.  But  the  result  of  the 
evidence,  taking  it  in  the  most  favorable  light  for  the  de- 
fendant, amounts  to  making  the  boundaries  and  rights  of 
these  parties  doubtful,  and  being  so,  it  was  the  most  proper 
case  for  an  agreement,  which  being  entered  into,  the  parties 
could  not  resort  back  to  the  original  rights  between  them, 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  99 

for,  if  so,  no  agreement  could  stand;  whereas  an  agreement 
entered  into  without  surprise  ought  to  be  encouraged  by  a 
court  of  justice. 

In  relation  to  the  coterminous  boundary  of  this  State  and 
New  Jersey,  I  would  remark  that,  inasmuch  as  the  original 
grant  from  the  king  to  the  Duke  of  York  was  of  all  the 
territory  from  the  river  St.  Croix  to  the  east  side  of  the 
Delaware  Bay,  and  his  later  grant  to  him  subsequent  to 
the  Delaware  conquest,  of  the  town  of  New  Castle,  and  all 
the  lands  embraced  within  the  compass  or  circle  of  twelve 
miles  surrounding  it,  together  with  all  the  islands  in  the 
river  Delaware  and  the  said  river  and  soil  thereof  lying 
north  of  the  southernmost  part  of  the  said  circle  of  twelve 
miles  about  the  said  town,  it  has  always  been  considered 
and  held  in  this  State  that,  when  we  come  to  inquire  for  and 
ascertain  the  boundary  between  the  two  grants  where  they 
abut  on  each  other,  they  must,  of  course,  be  read  and  con- 
strued together  with  strict  reference  to  the  manifest  import 
of  the  terms  employed  in  each  to  designate  their  respective 
limits,  and  the  extent  of  territory,  land,  and  soil  intended 
to  be  granted  and  conveyed  in  each  of  them  respectively;  and 
as  the  former  is  to  extend  to  the  east  side  of  the  Delaware 
Bay,  which  was  then  and  has  ever  since  been  understood  to 
include  the  Delaware  River  also  (otherwise  the  grant  would 
not  have  extended  to  the  river,  but  to  the  bay  only),  and 
the  latter  conveys  not  only  the  town  of  New  Castle  and 
all  that  tract  of  land  lying  within  the  compass  or  circle  of 
twelve  miles  from  the  said  town,  situate,  lying,  and  being 
upon  the  river  Delaware,  but  also  all  the  islands  in  the 
said  river  Delaware,  and  the  said  river  and  soil  thereof 


100  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

lying  north .  of  the  southernmost  part  of  the  said  circle  of 
twelve  miles  about  the  said  town,  it  extends  to  the  east  side 
of  the  river  likewise  within  the  circumference  of  the  said 
circle;  for  it  was  as  clearly  the  intention  of  the  king  to 
convey  to  the  duke  in  the  second  grant,  with  the  town  of 
New  Castle  and  the  lands  about  it  as  limited  and  described, 
that  part  of  the  river  itself,  and  the  soil  thereof,  or  the  bed 
thereof,  to  the  east  side  of  it  lying  within  the  circle,  as  it 
was  his  intention  to  convey  to  him  in  the  first  grant  all  the 
land  on  the  other  side  of  it  to  the  east  side  of  the  Delaware 
Bay.  And  such  is  the  construction  we  have  always  given 
to  the  two  grants,  and  the  courts  of  our  State  have  from 
the  earliest  period  claimed  and  exercised  jurisdiction  over 
that  part  of  the  river  to  low-water  mark  on  the  east  side  of 
it,  as  a  rightful  portion  of  the  domain  of  our  State,  and  as 
much  so  as  any  other  part  of  it  claimed  under  that  or  any 
other  grant.  And  the  construction  w^hich  we  have  thus 
give  to  it  is  in  accordance  with  the  construction  which  has 
been  uniformly  given  to  similar  grants  in  analogous  cases  in 
the  highest  courts  of  the  United  States.  But  without  that 
express  grant  of  the  river  itself,  and  the  subaqueous  soil,  or 
bottom  of  it  within  the  compass  or  circle  designated,  the 
second  grant  would  have  been  controlled  by  the  general 
principle  of  legal  construction  applicable  in  such  cases,  and 
would  have  extended  adfUum  aqua,  or  to  the  channel,  or 
the  middle  of  the  river  only. 

But  we  derived  our  title  to  it  immediately,  not  from  the 
second  grant  of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  but  from  the 
deed  of  feoffment  in  the  same  terms  from  the  Duke  of  York 
to   William   Penn   for  the   same  possessions,   the  essential 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  101 

portion  of  which  I  have  before  read  to  you,  and  which  I 
then  stated  to  you  was  executed  and  deHvered  to  him  before 
the  grant  for  the  same  had  been  made  to  the  duke  by  the 
king,  although  he  had  been  placed  in  full  possession  and 
command  of  them  as  absolute  owner,  proprietary,  and  royal 
governor  of  them  by  the  king  eight  years  prior  to  the  sale 
and  conveyance  of  them  by  him  to  William  Penn,  and  had 
so  been  in  the  possession  of  them  for  eight  years  when  he 
made  that  sale  and  conveyance  to  Penn.  And  as  this  was, 
among  others,  made  a  matter  of  particidar  objection  before 
Lord  Chancellor  Hardwick  in  the  case  before  mentioned,  and 
from  which  I  have  already  read  so  largely,  by  the  counsel 
for  Lord  Baltimore  to  the  ability  of  the  heirs  of  William 
Penn  to  make  a  good  and  sufficient  legal  title  to  him  for 
any  portion  of  the  territories  in  dispute  between  them,  in  case 
his  lordship  should  decree  a  specific  execution  of  the  article 
of  agreement,  you  will  excuse  me  for  now  reading  what  the 
Lord  Chancellor  said  in  regard  to  that  matter. 

"As  to  the  plaintiff's  estate  and  possession,  this  must 
concern  only  the  three  lower  counties  which  plainly  passed 
by  the  feoffment.  I  will  lay  aside  the  question  of  estoppel, 
which  is  a  nice  consideration,  for  the  Duke  of  York  being 
then  in  the  nature  of  a  common  person,  was  in  a  condition 
to  be  estopped  by  a  proper  instrument.  In  1683  the  Duke 
of  York  takes  a  new  grant  from  the  Crown,  and  having 
granted  before,  was  bound  to  make  further  assurance;  for 
the  improvements  made  by  Penn  were  a  foundation  to  sup- 
port a  bill  in  equity  for  further  assurance.  The  Duke  of 
York,  therefore,  while  a  subject,  was  to  be  considered  as  a 
trustee.    Why  not  afterwards  as  a  royal  trustee.^    I  will  not 


lOi  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

decree  that  in  this  court,  nor  is  it  necessary;  but  it  is  a 
notion  estabhshed  in  courts  of  revenue  by  modern  decis- 
ions that  the  king  may  be  a  royal  trustee;  and  if  the  per- 
son from  whom  the  king  takes  by  descent  was  a  trustee, 
there  may  be  grounds  in  equity  to  support  that;  and  if 
King  James  the  Second,  after  coming  to  the  crown,  was  a 
royal  trustee,  his  successors  take  the  legal  estate  under  the 
same  equity;  and  it  is  sufficient  for  the  plaintiffs  if  they 
have  an  equitable  estate.  Then  consider  this  in  point  of 
possession  of  the  Penns,  the  proof  of  which  is  very  clear. 
They  have  been  permitted  to  appoint  governors  of  these 
lower  counties,  which  have  been  approved  by  the  Crown, 
according  to  the  statute  of  King  William.  Indeed,  all  the 
acts  of  possession  are  with  a  salvo  jure  to  the  Crown.  But 
the  evidence  for  the  defendants  amounts  to  this.  Not  a  real 
possession  or  enjoyment,  but  of  attempts  to  take  possession, 
sometimes  by  force,  sometimes  by  inciting  people  to  come 
there;  otherwise  why  should  Lord  Baltimore  grant  here 
for  half  what  he  granted  in  other  places?  Which  shows 
plainly  that  it  was  an  invitation  to  get  settlers  there  under 
their  title.  But  what  ends  this  point  of  want  of  title  to 
convey  is,  that  no  part  of  the  lower  counties  is  left  to  be 
conveyed  by  the  plaintiffs  to  the  defendant;  so  that  nothing 
being  to  pass  by  plaintiffs,  it  is  not  material  whether  they 
have  title  to  convey  or  not.  But  now,  in  cases  of  this  kind, 
of  two  great  territories  held  of  the  Crown,  I  will  say,  once 
for  all,  that  long  possession  and  enjoyment,  peopling  and 
cultivating  countries,  is  one  of  the  best  evidences  of  title 
to  lands  or  districts  of  land  in  America  that  can  be;  and  so 
have  I  thought  in  all  cases  since  I  have  served  the  Crown; 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE  lOS 

for  the  great  beneficial  advantages  arising  to  the  Crown  from 
settling  such  regions  is  that  the  navigation  and  commerce  of 
the  country  is  thereby  improved.  Those  persons,  therefore, 
who  make  these  settlements  ought  to  be  protected  in  the 
possession  as  far  as  law  and  equity  can;  and  both  these  pro- 
prietors appear  to  have  great  merit  with  regard  to  the  Crown 
and  the  public,  for  these  two  provinces  have  been  improved 
in  private  families  to  a  great  degree,  to  the  advantage  of  their 
mother-country;  this  regards  the  three  lower  counties,  the 
strength  of  which  is  vastly  on  the  side  of  the  plaintiffs." 

Another  very  kind  and  complimentary  allusion  to  the 
worth  of  our  infant  little  State,  of  which  we  may  well  feel 
proud,  for  it  certainly  ought  to  be  eminently  gratifying  to 
us,  even  at  this  day,to  know  that  so  good  and  a  great  a  man, 
and  such  a  profound  and  able  jurist  and  statesman  as  Lord 
Chancellor  Hardwick  entertained  such  a  kind  and  favorable 
opinion  of  us  at  that  early  period.  I  apprehend,  however, 
that  his  distinguished  lordship  could  have  had  but  little,  if 
any,  presentiment  in  his  noble  mind  that  the  same  radiant 
little  gem  which  he  was  just  then  contemplating  with  such 
a  high  and  favorable  estimate  of  its  value  was  so  soon  to  be 
wrenched  by  an  unlineal  hand,  with  all  its  other  and  still 
more  resplendent  American  jewels,  from  that  same  magnifi- 
cent crown  which  he  was  then  serving  with  so  much  ability, 
admiration,  and  devotion  in  that  exalted  station. 

But  to  return  from  this  digression,  I  will  simply  add  on 
the  point  from  which  I  was  diverted,  that  all  the  equities 
involved  in  the  question  presented  are  clearly  in  our  favor; 
and  perhaps,  before  an  equity  tribunal,  among  them  there 
is  none  more  deserving  of  attention  than  that  alluded  to 


104  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

by  his  lordship  in  analogy  to  a  plea  of  estoppel  in  law. 
Both  States,  New  Jersey  and  Delaware,  derive  their  legal 
title  from  the  same  noble  grantor,  he  derived  his  to  both 
estates  immediately  from  the  Crown,  to  which  he  himself 
succeeded  so  soon  after  selling  to  Penn,  and  after  obtaining 
his  legal  title  for  the  same  from  the  Crown,  and  the  death 
of  Charles  the  Second  occurring  so  soon  and  suddenly  and 
unexpectedly  after  that,  there  was  scarcely  a  reasonable  time 
left  under  all  the  circumstances  for  obtaining  a  conveyance 
of  further  assurance  from  the  Duke  of  York  before  he 
became  king;  and  after  that  there  was  no  method  of  com- 
pelling it,  if  he  either  neglected  or  declined  to  make  it. 
But  since  that  decision  it  has  been  ruled  and  established 
under  the  sanction  of  such  names  at  Lord  Mansfield's  and 
Lord  Kenyon's,  that  even  in  the  courts  of  law  of  that 
kingdom  such  a  trust  would  be  presumed  to  have  been 
surrendered  by  the  holder  of  the  legal  title  for  the  security 
of  the  equitable  owner  of  the  estate  after  such  a  long  pos- 
session of  it  by  him. 

The  decree  in  the  case  of  Penn  vs.  Lord  Baltimore  was 
for  a  specific  performance  and  execution  of  the  articles  of 
agreement,  which  finally  settled  (practically,  however,  only, 
it  seems)  the  long  vexed  and  perplexing  question  in  rela- 
tion especially  to  what  now  constitute  the  coterminous 
boundaries  of  this  State  and  the  State  of  Maryland,  and 
under  it  the  same  were  run,  marked  with  stone  pillars  one 
mile  apart,  and  established  in  conformity  with  the  terms  of 
the  agreement. 

But  to  complete  the  present  narrative  of  the  subject,  I 
think  it  but  just  and  proper  out  of  the  respect  which  I 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.         105 

entertain  for  that  State,  and  the  favorable  opinion  and  regard 
which  its  citizens  have  always  cherished  for  the  character  and 
memory  of  their  provincial  proprietaries,  and  in  extenuation 
of  what  would  seem  to  have  been  the  perverse  and  obstinate 
spirit  so  long  maintained  and  manifested  on  the  part  of  the 
chief  of  them  against  any  amicable  settlement  of  the  contro- 
versy, to  quote  again  from  the  opinion  of  Lord  Chancellor 
Hardwick,  what  he  finally  said  in  the  conclusion  of  it  in  re- 
lation to  the  last  of  them,  and  as  a  matter  throwing  some 
further  light  on  this  interesting  portion  of  its  history.  It  was 
more  particularly  with  reference  to  his  refusal  to  execute  the 
articles  of  agreement  and  resisting  the  suit  that  he  remarked 
when  considering  the  question  of  costs  in  the  case, — ■ 

"But  in  America  the  defendant's  commissioners  behaved 
with  great  chicane  in  the  points  they  insisted  on  (when 
they  had  met  for  the  purpose  of  performing  the  duties  de- 
volved upon  them  by  the  articles  prior  to  the  institution  of 
the  suit),  as  the  want  of  a  centre  for  the  circle  about  New 
Castle,  and  the  extent  of  that  circle,  viz.,  whether  a  diameter 
of  two  or  of  twelve  miles,  the  endeavoring  to  take  advan- 
tage of  one  of  the  plaintiff's  commissioners  coming  too  late 
to  make  the  plaintiffs  incur  the  penalty.  The  defendant  has 
been  misled  by  his  commissioners  and  agents  in  America 
to  make  their  objections  his  defence,  which  brings  it  nearer 
to  himself;  and  although  he  would  not  at  all  have  thought 
of  it  as  from  himself  (so  that  I  impute  nothing  in  the  least 
dishonorable  to  him),  yet  I  must  take  it  as  his  own  act; 
and  then  should  not  do  complete  justice  if  I  did  not  give 
plaintiffs  the  costs  of  this  suit  to  this  time,  to  l)e  taxed, 
reserving  subsequent  costs." 


106  ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

The  execution  of  the  decree  by  the  commissioners  and 
the -surveyors,  Messrs.  Mason  and  Dixon,  in  running,  mark- 
ing, and  estabhshing  the  boundary,  was  not  completed  until 
the  year  1768,  nor  was  it  confirmed  by  the  king  and  by 
orders  in  council  until  the  month  of  January  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  and  it  was  not  until  the  8th  day  of  April,  1775, 
that  the  Governor  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Three 
Lower  Counties  and  Province  of  Pennsylvania  published 
his  proclamation  requiring  all  oflScers  and  other  persons 
residing  on  our  side  of  it,  as  thus  established  and  confirmed, 
to  yield  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  said  counties  and  gov- 
ern themselves  according  thereto,  and  which  was  followed 
by  the  act  of  the  Legislature  reciting  the  foregoing  proceed- 
ings, and  extending  the  divisional  lines  of  the  counties 
through  the  newly-acquired  strip  of  territory  from  their 
former  western  termini  to  the  boundary  so  established,  and 
to  all  persons  inhabiting  it  as  the  lately  disputed  lands  of 
this  government  all  the  immunities,  rights,  liberties,  and 
privileges  which  they  could  or  might  be  entitled  to  as  if 
they  had  always  been  acknowledged  actually  to  have  re- 
sided within  the  same,  and  which  was  not  passed  until  the 
2d  day  of  September,  1775,  and  which  was  the  last  statute 
but  two  enacted  under  the  proprietary  government  by  the 
Honorable  John  Penn,  Esq.,  with  his  Majesty's  royal  appro- 
bation Governor  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Counties 
of  New  Castle,  Kent,  and  Sussex  upon  Delaware,  and  Prov- 
ince of  Pennsylvania,  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of 
the  representatives  of  the  freemen  of  the  said  counties  in 
General  Assembly  met,  and  by  authority  of  the  same. 

And  now  these  massive  stones  and  monumental  marks  just 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  DELAWARE.  107 

planted  upon  the  boundary  and  duly  confirmed  and  ratified 
with  all  the  forms  and  ceremonies  of  the  law,  are  already 
beginning  to  shake  and  tremble  with  the  earthquake  throes 
of  a  great  upheaval,  for  we  are  now  on  the  very  verge  of 
the  American  Revolution.  On  the  4th  of  July  following 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  adopted  in  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States,  and  in  glad  response  to  it  and 
under  the  majesty  of  its  sanction,  by  the  20th  of  September 
following  the  freemen  of  the  three  lower  counties  upon 
Delaw^are  had,  by  their  delegates  duly  chosen  and  in  con- 
vention assembled,  framed  and  adopted  a  constitution  of 
government  as  a  free,  independent,  and  sovereign  state  of 
the  world,  under  the  name  and  style  of  The  Delaware  State. 
But  for  that  we  were  indebted  in  a  peculiar  manner  and 
degree  to  that  Congress  of  the  United  States  and  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  as  no  other  of  the  thir- 
teen States  that  came  out  of  it  was;  for  we  entered  it  as  the 
territories  or  three  lower  counties  of  the  Province  of  Penn- 
sylvania upon  Delaware,  by  virtue  of  the  executive  and 
proprietary  ligament  which  then  connected  us  to  it;  but 
that  was  severed  by  the  word  of  the  Declaration,  on  the 
faith  of  the  sword  that  was  instantly  drawn  to  complete  and 
consummate  it,  because  all  the  powers  of  government  which 
William  Penn  or  his  heirs  or  lieutenants  had  ever  possessed, 
either  in  the  province  or  its  territories,  were  conferred  by 
and  held  at  the  will  and  pleasure  of  the  King  of  Great 
Britain,  our  king  as  well  as  his  king  up  to  that  moment, 
and  when  his  Majesty  ceased  to  be  our  sovereign,  he  and 
his  heirs  and  his  deputies  ceased,  of  course,  to  be  our  gov- 
ernors.   Their  subordinate  powers,  of  course,  perished  with 


108        ADDRESS  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  BOUNDARIES. 

the  sovereignty  on  which  they  solely  depended.  And  the 
last  link  which  bound  us  to  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania, 
was  at  the  same  time  dissolved  with  it.  But  suppose  there 
had  been  no  legislative  secession  and  separation  from  the 
province  prior  to  that,  we  should  have  still  remained  the 
three  lower  counties  of  the  State,  instead  of  the  Province  of 
Pennsylvania  upon  Delaware;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  sup- 
pose Lord  Chancellor  Hardwick  had  ruled  and  decided  in 
the  case  referred  to,  in  favor  of,  instead  of  against,  the  claim 
and  pretension  of  Lord  Baltimore,  we  should  have  gone 
into  that  Congress  and  come  out  of  it,  and  been  to  this  day 
nothing  but  three  more  counties  added  to  the  Eastern 
Shore  of  the  State  of  Maryland. 

And  now  after  this  presentation  of  the  history  of  the 
subject,  have  I  erred  in  the  conclusions  to  which  it  has  con- 
ducted me,  or  over-estimated  the  significance  and  importance 
of  the  three  great  events  which  I  have  regarded  as  the  most 
fortunate  and  momentous  in  their  consequences  and  results 
that  have  ever  occurred  in  our  history  up  to  the  date  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence;  the  settlement  at  the  Hoorn 
Kill  prior  to  the  date  of  Lord  Baltimore's  patent,  the  legis- 
lative separation  from  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
decree  of  the  High  Court  of  Chancery  in  England  in  the 
celebrated  case  to  which  I  have  referred  so  much  at  large.'' 
They  made  us  a  constituent  and  co-ordinate  member  of  the 
great  republic  of  the  United  States  of  America,  and  certainly 
constitute  the  three  golden  links.both  in  our  colonial  history 
and  in  our  colonial  destiny. 


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